Resurrection V - Journeys
by Annejackdanny
Summary: see Resurrection I for summary. This is kidfic, h/c, Jack/Daniel, AU, adventure, angst, takes place in season six so has ascended Daniel in it
1. Chapter 1

**Part V**

**Journeys**

_**Even**__** when he doesn't remember who Daniel is. He'll know him. He'll recognize something in him and know he has to listen to him.**_

**I**

Sam checked her pack one last time to make sure she had everything she needed. It was a simple leather backpack. No zips and no handy little extra bags, just two main compartments. But it was roomy enough for all her equipment and comfortable to wear. She had stacked the packages of food Jadah had provided her with in the smaller part of the pack and everything else in the larger main section.

She had considered to refuse the food offerings, thinking she would just hunt and live on herbs. She didn't want any gifts from Jadah. But common sense had forced her to accept the bread and summer sausage, the tea bags, slices of cold, spicy chicken breast and a small cheese. It would be a waste of resources not to take it. So she had accepted it and thanked Jadah politely.

Her mind, occupied with trying to pull more and more memories out of dusty, dark corners, insisted that she needed a weapon. Zats, MP5, P-90, hand guns... images to go with the words were delivered readily now. But another part of her still couldn't quite believe she had ever wielded guns. Had killed people. In the field.

On missions with SG-1 and before, on other missions.

But she had. She knew she had.

And now she was supposed to take this trip to free Teal'c without a weapon? Granted, she had a knife, but it hardly counted as an efficient weapon. It wasn't even as big as her combat knife. Still, it was better than nothing. For now.

Jadah watched her from where she stood in the doorway and when their eyes met Sam thought that, for the first time since she had come here, her mentor looked old. Fragile.

Sam's initial impulse to smile reassuringly at Jadah died quickly. Instead she looked away and pulled at the leather straps to close her pack. She was ready to leave. There was really nothing more to say or do.

Except she felt Jadah's violet, sad eyes on her and she couldn't just walk away. Taking a deep breath, Sam turned to face her again. "So, this is good-bye then. I should thank you for taking me in." It sounded all wrong. Days ago she had loved this woman, had considered her family.

She still did. Which was making this all so much more difficult.

Jadah clasped her hands over her belly, smoothing out the flowing green fabric of her dress. "You don't need to thank me, Samantha. It was my pleasure. And you should know I am sad to see you leave."

"I need to do this. You were the one sending me away," she replied curtly.

"It doesn't change the fact that I am going to miss you, dear."

Sam didn't want to have this conversation. She wanted to take her anger and pain and leave. But instead she took a step towards the other woman.

"Why?" The word was meant to come out sharp and piercing. Instead it came out almost like a plea – laced with sorrow and the need to know. "Why the lies? Why didn't you just tell me everything and help me get back my memories? Why waste all this time with teaching me about herbs and drugs and spinning tales about legends and myths?"

"The memory stamp does not give way easily. In fact, very few are even strong enough to overcome its power. When you came here my orders were clear. I was to keep you safe and make sure the shield was not breached. They hoped it would adjust on its own once you were removed from the city and the academy. In the beginning that was all I intended to do."

"But then you changed your mind. You decided to help me. Why didn't you just tell me then?" Sam insisted.

Jadah sighed. "Had I told you up front, you would not have believed me. And I had to be very careful in opening your mind. Even when I was convinced your shield wasn't firmly in place, there was a great danger of damaging your mind, had I just exposed you to the truth. Also I needed to process everything I learned about you, your other life, before I could work with you."

Sam nodded. She had heard this before during their long talks over the last two days. Still, she could not quite wrap her head around the way Jadah had manipulated her. "You could have tried," she said forcefully.

"It would have been of little use," Jadah replied. "You are angry and I understand. But those who have done this to you and your friends are the real ones to blame. I am merely trying to help. Please, understand."

"I know. It's just that..." She shook her head as if the words would come more easily that way. "I feel like I wasted precious time here, doing nothing, while Teal'c is slowly torturing himself to death in that monastery. And the colonel is god knows where without having a clue about what's going on."

"It was not wasted, dear. You needed that time to prepare for what lies ahead of you. And to rest your soul. And I needed that time to be sure you were the right one to send on this journey. I believed it from the start, but I needed to study you. I would not put this burden upon you if you weren't ready."

As much as she wanted to hold on to her anger, Sam had to yield to the truth in Jadah's words. She had needed that time. Hopefully, some of what she had learned would come in handy once she found Teal'c.

She shouldered her pack and made sure it sat comfortably. "I have to go."

"I know. May the sun and the moon guide you." Jadah came to her and opened her arms. Sam found herself wrapped in cool green silk and the scent of lavender. "Take care of yourself. Bring your friend back here if you can, but if he is too weak..."

"I will stay at Jelica's canyon until he is fit enough to journey." Sam gently freed herself from Jadah's embrace. "Jelica... she was real, right?"

"Her mother was memory stamped, but Jelica wasn't. She was born here," Jadah said patiently. They had talked about this, too, before, but somehow Sam needed the reasurance. Jelica wasn't part of a memory stamp induced lie and neither was the story of her lover – a Jaffa – and their son. But the whole legend of the Sinners was one big mesh of lies, spread by whoever wanted to keep the Jaffa and their symbiotes separated from the rest of the population.

Sam stepped out into the early morning, immediately greeted by the scent of the rose garden. She breathed in their sweet, enchanting fragrance as she walked the familiar path among red, yellow, blue and pink blooms. She would miss it all and the intensity of loss that hit her when she passed through the white wooden gate was almost overwhelming.

She didn't turn around. Jadah would watch her until she was nothing more than a tiny dot at the horizon, but if she looked back now she might not be able to leave without tears.

She straightened up and set one foot before the other, striding away, leaving behind her home with every step she took. Left and right of the road lay wide fields of flowers, a sea of yellow, white and purple blossoms during summer. Now the colors were slowly fading as the plants prepared to retreat into the soil until spring. Sam kept her eyes on the treeline at the horizon.

That's where the road would take her.

For the first time since the memories had returned she wished she had some sort of transportation. A jeep. A car of any kind. Not because she didn't like to walk, but because a vehicle would take her away faster and she didn't have to try so hard not to notice all the familiar things on her way, like the large stone well in the middle of the field where they drew water from during dry periods.

It had been Sam who thought up a simple irrigation system leading from the well and spreading out all over the field. They still had to pump water by hand, but it was guided by wooden chutes from there and transported to where it was needed. No more dragging the heavy buckets across the fields, which had taken hours out of a day. Not to mention the pain it had caused in arms and back.

The things they could do around here with electricity... Now that she could actually recall having electric power like central heating, air condition, showers and microwaves and, oh my gosh, computers, she was surprised about the fact that she had lived without all those comforts she used to take for granted before – and never missed them.

_You can't miss what you don't know_, she thought. The human mind was a terrifying enigma. She was way more comfortable dealing with concepts she could understand and analyze or at least determine on a mathematical level.

The road was lined with old apple trees now; the orchard was the border of Jadah's property. Half of it was hers, half of it belonged to the closest neighbor, a wealthy farmer named Ollie Madder. The branches bowed under their load of ripe, red apples and Sam couldn't resist picking one.

_My parting gift,_ she thought as she polished the fruit on the sleeve of her jacket before she took a bite and savored the sour-sweet, juicy taste.

She allowed her thoughts to wander. Jadah had said it was the best way to retain any missing memories.

_Just let your mind take you on a journey to wherever it wants to go._

She had already drawn parallels from her 'real' life to what the memory stamp had made of it. Her mom was dead. Only she had been killed in a car accident when Sam was thirteen. The memory stamp wanted her to believe she lost her mother when she had still been a small child.

The find of that particular memory was among the most painful ones, so far, and she was glad Jadah had been with her when it surfaced. Her dad, however, was alive. And that had been one of the most important discoveries yet. With remembering her father she had recovered her knowledge of the Tok'ra and that led to more details about the way they had lost Daniel.

Her dad had been there. He had tried to heal Daniel.

Until the colonel had told him to stop. Had said Daniel wanted them to let him go.

_But what if dad could have healed him? Even if the chances were so slim. What if he could have been successful? And what if the Tok'ra could have offered a symbiote – just temporarily – to complete Daniel's healing? _

She realized, as she looked up at the sky, painted pink and orange by the morning sun, that she had never gotten satisfactory answers to those questions. Shortly after Daniel had ascended her dad left quickly because he'd been needed for some undercover Tok'ra operation.

The colonel had given them the report about Oma taking Daniel to another plane of existence and that he had wanted to go with her. Her CO had presented them with the facts in a briefing. Then he had requested the rest of the day off and when Hammond had nodded gravely and told all of them to take the weekend; the colonel had left without another word.

Sam remembered being in Daniel's office a week later, randomly picking up things from his desk. Notebooks, scrolls, pens... his office had been so alive with his presence. Everything was scattered over his desk. Even a mug with dried up coffee on the bottom. Probably his last one before they'd gone to Kelowna.

She had expected him to round the corner and come in any moment.

There had been no memorial service, no body, no closure. And the colonel had pushed them back into action ASAP, slapping down any of her attempts to talk about what had happened to Daniel. She had tried...

..."Colonel. We need to talk."

"I don't want to hear it, Carter."

"You can't just pretend this didn't happen."

"I'm not pretending anything. This is the job. We lose people all the time."

"We're talking about Daniel."

"What do you want me to do? He's gone. We've got work to do."

Sam knew very well that Colonel O'Neill wasn't an open book regarding his true feelings about... almost anything personal. And that was okay. She had lived and worked with the military mindset all her life. She had absorbed some of the same training as her dad and her CO. She knew about distancing yourself from emotions that would otherwise go too deep to deal with on a day-to-day basis.

Everyone had their own way of coping. The colonel swallowed things down and probably tortured the punching bag in the gym to death from time to time. Her dad used to go on long runs or process things during excessive yard work. Sam used the gym to work off stress. And she liked to talk to her plants, occasionally.

But this was Daniel.

Daniel, who had been her best friend, the brother she never had in Mark. And she never even had the small comfort of saying good-bye to him. Not the way Colonel O'Neill had been able to. And he wouldn't even share with them what had been said. Only that Daniel had been ready to leave with Oma.

Daniel had been part of their team, their family. And they had all lost him, they all had to come to terms with what happened there in the infirmary. And in Sam's mind they should come to terms with it together. As a team. Not each on their own, struggling in their attempts to cope with, or even understand, the loss.

She tried to reach out to Teal'c as well, but while he didn't close up and shut her out like the colonel, he'd apparently made his peace with Daniel's decision and was ready to move on. She sometimes wished she could borrow a bit of Teal'c's stoic acceptance.

He told her that, "Daniel Jackson has ascended to a higher plane of existence. Many Jaffa have dedicated their lives to achieving such a goal."

"So I'm supposed to celebrate?"

"It is a great accomplishment."

"We were a team, Teal'c. No one can even begin to understand what we went through together, what we mean to each other. So maybe Daniel has achieved something of great cosmic significance, I don't know. And to be honest with you, right now, I don't really care. I'd rather have him back."

"As would I."

At least Teal'c was willing to listen. They were thrown back into full duty without enough time to grieve or process. Their first mission was yet another close call – but in the end they managed to rescue Thor from the clutches of Anubis.

Once they returned home the colonel took them out to dinner; his way of acknowledging they needed a team night. Maybe his way of giving them an opportunity to have their own farewell party for Daniel.

They still didn't talk much. The colonel continued to keep himself detached on the outside – but he had lost the harsh bite and with every passing hour Sam could see more and more of her own pain reflected in his haunted, dark eyes. It wasn't enough, but sitting together and drinking – with Teal'c somberly toasting each drink to Daniel and a successful journey to wherever he was headed – helped them to re-bond a little...

...She had felt Daniel's presence that night. Earlier at the SGC when they'd been about to leave. Like a soft gust of wind caressing her hair. And later, much later, at the colonel's house when they had enough beer and wine (and cranberry juice in Teal'c's case) to know they'd be hungover tomorrow (except for Teal'c of course) – she sensed Daniel was with them.

Sam opened her jacket. She hadn't worked up a sweat yet, but she was making good time and it was going to be a warm day. The treeline was closer now. She roughly estimated it would take her three days to reach the area where Jelica had found the final ingredient for her drug. The monastery wasn't far from the canyon the healer described in Jadah's book.

Once she started working on that drug and was ready to get Teal'c she would need guidance from Daniel.

She hated being dependent on unknown factors, but in her years as part of SG-1 she had learned to go with the flow sometimes. Daniel would be there. He had come to see her last night to let her know he was going to help. It had only been a very brief meeting, but it reassured her more than any information Jadah had given her.

Daniel was real. He wasn't a cherry-drug delusion.

So, three days – if she kept up the pace. She needed to be careful not to hike too fast. She was a bit out of shape. She had to take breaks, without slowing down too much, to avoid blisters or overall exhaustion.

She could do it. No problem.

Grimacing, she muttered. "Never been great at pep-talking myself." Well, it was going to be a lonely journey so she only had herself to talk to. A memory surfaced in the well of memories and she grinned at the thought of Urgo. He HAD reminded her of her uncle Erwin, dad's older brother.

Sam walked on, humming 'Row row row your boat' in a very out-of-tune way.

The forest was old.

She had been here occasionally with Jadah, in the search for herbs they didn't grow in their garden. Silver sage or painted fern were nocturnal bloomers and felt most comfortable in the deep dark greens of the forest. At night the sage beckoned with its rich fragrance and silvery glow and the fern's veins pulsed as though purple blood was pumped through them.

"Some plants are best left where they thrive on their own," Jadah used to say.

_Like the people who were trapped here should have been left alone to go home and live their own life,_ Sam thought bitterly. Each of them probably had left someone behind; families and friends who wondered where their loved ones had gone, why they never returned. Forced to live with painful uncertainty. And the stamped people had been robbed of their identities, their roots.

She still had no recollection of when exactly they had arrived on Ba'th or why Jonas wasn't with them. From what Jadah shared with her it had only been the colonel, Teal'c and her. They had arrived on a cold and rainy day – winter still. Everyone was surprised because it had been years since travelers stepped out of the ring portal.

"The guardians of the ring portal have very little work to do these days, but they are still on duty to make sure no one arrives undetected. You and your friends were taken to the facilities immediately," Jadah had said.

"What facilities?"

"The facilities where the memory stamp is put in. Usually the stamp works very well in suppressing anything that is of no importance to your new life. It filters your experiences and your memories in a way that you can recall certain events, or emotions, but in a different context. Sometimes, if they find it necessary or beneficial, they use your past life knowledge to their advantage when they place you in our society. That's what we have been taught anyway."

'We' had turned out to be two groups of insiders, called the 'Shadows' and the 'Mentors'. The Shadows were to make sure the new arrivals settled down and eased into the society without a hitch, adapted to their new life as if it had always been theirs. They could be the doorman to your apartment house – if you lived in the cities – a co-worker, the mail man or someone you never knew at all, someone who stayed in the shadows all the time.

They observed, reported back to the authorities about any deviation from predicted behavior patterns and made notes about the newbies' progress like their working career and living circumstances. Usually the Shadows watched the newcomers for a year. That was the time it took for the memory stamp to completely override any unwanted leftover traces of the former life. After that time the stamped citizens were considered 'slotted in' and left alone.

Apparently from time to time the stamp didn't grasp properly or people's brain patterns were not compatible with the stamps. Usually any issues were sorted out quickly. However, very rarely, stamped men and women were released into their new life, tagged as 'altered', but the memory stamp kept malfunctioning within the first few months, even after re-adjustment.

That's where the Mentors came in.

Jadah was Sam's Mentor. Sam's Shadow, who had observed her at the academy where she worked, filed a report about her being unhappy in the line of work she'd been placed in. That she had very few friends and almost no social life. That she didn't adapt as she should even though there had been no appearance of unwanted memories.

Her memory stamp had tagged her as an outgoing woman who liked to make new friends. She was supposed to take great pleasure in teaching engineering. But she didn't enjoy teaching. She was interested in her field of expertise, but she'd rather built engines herself, or work on developing the technology further. She'd thought she could do so much MORE than teach what was already in the books. But when she had voiced her plans to the principal - in order to be allowed to move on from teaching to the science labs or getting her own office at the Council of Technology – the man had laughed into her face.

She was a woman. She should feel very privileged to be allowed to work in the academic world at all. Only the best and brightest made it this far up the career ladder. A woman working at the Council of Technology or even at the science labs of the academy was unthinkable. It was man's work. Women, so she had been told, ended up being married and pregnant at some point and were lost to the academic world because their place was at home with the children then. Working in the field of science or technology development or even engineering required full devotion to the work without being side tracked by the biological clock ticking when the time came.

Sam had fumed with anger and humiliation. She had told this principal where he could stick his views and stomped out of his office. The unfair disadvantage had only registered with her then. That she was branded for being the wrong gender. She had never really thought about the place and status of women in society before.

Now she wondered if the memory stamp had already malfunctioned there. Because surely she should have been aware of how 'privileged' she was for even being allowed to teach at the academy? And it was only then that she had realized that nearly all her colleagues, even in the teaching area, were men. Almost all the women working on campus were secretaries or librarians.

That night she had gone out to dinner with a friend and she remembered how she had vented about how every woman should be allowed to have the same choices and opportunities as men.

"It's not fair," she had huffed and sippedfrom her drink. "What am I? A breeding machine? And even if I ever wanted children, which at this point in my life I wouldn't consider an option, who says I can't still work then? Who says I need to stay home full time to tend to my kids? Fathers have to take responsibilities, too. Raising children is not a woman's sole purpose or obligation."...

...Björk didn't laugh. Instead he raised his glass and said, "This world needs more women like you, Sam. Maybe one day there will be equality of women and men, but it needs a lot of work to get there."

She sighed. "I know. And I'm not going to change anything. But it makes me so mad. I mean, what am I supposed to do? Be a teacher all my life? Or find a job that's suitable for women? What does that even mean – suitable for women? Who makes up rules like this?"

"A government and authorities ruled by men alone."

"Well, you're a guy and you understand. There's hope, I guess," she said with a bitter snort.

Björk smiled. "Sadly I'm not your average male specimen."

She grimaced. "There shouldn't even be such a thing as an 'average male or female'. We're all unique. Everyone should have the same chances despite their gender. You may have to face prejudice for liking guys at some places, but they still allow you to choose your own profession. Because you don't have a biological clock ticking."

"I agree. But you have to be careful to whom you express your views on this." A shadow fell on his handsome face. "I'd hate to see you expelled from the academy. You can still do much around here. Ask them if you could use one of the science labs part time for student projects. You could work on that battery project."

"It's a fuel cell," Sam corrected him. "And I need more than a lab to work on it. I need resource money. And someone who's listening. Someone in the right place. If I can make this happen, a fuel cell could provide us with unlimited electricity, heat or water."

"So can a steam generator," Björk said.

"Yes, but steam generators are huge and clunky and need too much space. Even the smaller steam turbines are way too big for everyday use. I'm talking about empowering homes and small companies with affordable electricity without steam turbines. A fuel powered generator that could serve everyone in daily life, even outside the cities."

"Wow." Björk toasted his glass to her. "To Samantha Carter. A brilliant mind in the wrong body."

"Har har." She tossed her napkin at him, but couldn't suppress a smile.

Sobering, her friend said, "You need to find someone you can show your plans and blueprints to."

"I'd have to be a guy!"

"Just don't jeopardize your job by making too much noise. Once they expelled you from the academy you won't ever be able to set foot in the door." He frowned. "There has to be a way to make people listen."

"Well, if you find someone, let me know," she muttered and they sat in silence for several minutes.

Finally Björk sighed. "Mothers and fathers need to start teaching their children new and different values. That's where changes start. If you ever have kids, you could do that."

She looked at him and felt – if not happy – better. "I will."

She decided there and then that if she ever had kids, it had to be with a guy who was as open minded and ready to value different and new views as Björk. It was too bad he wasn't interested in women. He was one of the very few friends she made at the academy.

He was a student of historical architecture and they had met in a pub one night. She had commented on his hair – a very exotic style and the color of strawberries at the time – and he had shrugged and said, "I like to be seen. Ask anyone you like and they'll tell you I look like a punk but I'm really a nice guy."...

...They had shared a couple of drinks and talked for long hours. She had felt comfortable with Björk, almost like they'd known each other their entire life. From there on they had met once every week at the pub.

Thinking of Björk now she realized he had a certain resemblance to Daniel. He'd been open to new ideas, had a great sense of humor and wasn't afraid of coloring outside the lines. And he didn't care what others thought of him.

In hindsight, however, she wondered if Björk had been her Shadow? Jadah said the Shadow could be anyone. What if it was Björk who had taken note of her rebellious nature and reported it to the authorities? Then again, Björk had encouraged her. But he'd also told her to be careful.

_What about that principal?_ Sam thought. _He could have been my Shadow as well._

Whoever it had been; he'd eventually informed the authorities of her malfunction.

According to Jadah, Sam had been taken back to the facilities to get 'fixed' – she guessed they'd tried to re-program the stamp somehow – but apparently without success. She had still not flourished in her work venue. Instead she had continued to look for someone who would listen to her ideas of fuel cells. She had written an essay for the academy's monthly science paper and sent it in. It was never published and she never heard back from the editor.

Finally they had recruited Jadah to be her Mentor.

One night – and she didn't remember any of it to this day - Sam had been abducted once more for another stamp adjusting. The next day she had a very urgent need to take a hike and leave everything behind.

She'd been right then. Jadah had waited for her.

The sharp sting of betrayal was back and she walked faster, the soles of her boots hitting the well-worn loamy ground hard.

"I was supposed to keep you in line and make sure you were under supervision until the year was over. And I was advised to give you certain drugs to make you more at ease and to mellow your mind," Jadah had said, her voice laced with regret. "You didn't fit in. They deemed you dangerous for the stability of society. Your ideas were too bold. And they feared you would bring bad values to the people.

"But when you arrived I sensed something so strong in you. And I loved you the moment you showed interest in my work. I watched you, Samantha, and looked into the information I could access from your former life. Everything fell together perfectly and I decided not to diminish your natural curiosity and thirst for knowledge by feeding you drugs. I've had many pupils in my life time, but you were the smartest and brightest of them all. No one has ever mastered the science of plants so easily, no one has ever understood the physics and chemical connections of ingredients so fast."

If Sam could believe Jadah – and to her own surprise she did – the old woman had done nothing but nurture her willingness to learn and her need of a place to rest and to put her head down...

..."You carried a great exhaustion within you. A great grief, a deep sadness," Jadah said. "But you recovered. And when I realized what was hidden in your mind and what an excellent student you were, I decided to help you to uncover your real memories. I – and my ancestors before me - have waited for an opportunity such as this for years and years. I had given up on ever finding someone with the capability of finishing Jelica's work. And then along came you."

"Why have you never tried to create Jelica's drug yourself," Sam asked. "Why have you never traveled to that canyon and found the ivy to experiment with it? Why me?"

"Being a Shadow or a Mentor means you are monitored by the authorities. They don't know what I am doing, but they can determine where I am." Jadah parted her hair at the back of her neck and Sam saw a tiny half-moon shaped scar. "We are implanted with a device that will show our movements. If I leave the area and travel anywhere close to the monastery they would come and question me eventually."

"Why are the Shadows and the Mentors implanted with a tracking device, but the memory stamped people aren't?" Sam asked.

And, almost as important, why was this planet still partly in an early industrial state if there was known technology like GPS implants? As this thought blossomed in her mind she suddenly realized she had never questioned the existence of the Armed Forces gliders either, who had sometimes patrolled the skies above the city. Those gliders were Goa'uld technology, no doubt about that.

"Who knows? Maybe there would be too many people to watch. There are very little issues with the stamped ones. But the Shadows and the Mentors are insiders who know about the stamps, which makes them more dangerous. If there was a traitor in their midst, who told people the truth, everything could end up in chaos. Even though it has been a long time since the stamps were used – until you came through – the authorities will try everything to keep the system going and to protect their knowledge."

Which made sense, all things considered. But... "Why the need to memory stamp? What is the purpose of it in the first place? Why not just stop doing it?"

Jadah sighed. "I don't know. It has always been this way. When the evil gods left – no one can really recall that time, it has been so long ago – the memory stamps were re-programmed to work in the favor of the new government and that's how it stayed to this day."...

...All that circled in Sam's mind while she journeyed on through the forest with its giant, gnarly trees, a foliage of green just occasionally sprinkled with the first signs of gold and red of fall colors.

She decided to take a break and sat on a dead tree trunk. As she sipped from her water pouch Sam wondered if the colonel's Shadow had noticed 'malfunctions' in him as well and if they had sent a Mentor for him, too.

She sure hoped her CO was okay, wherever he was. And she wished he'd started to remember. She could use his help in this mess at some point. Daniel had said, last night, he might have found a way to reach Jack after all, but that he couldn't make any promises. He hadn't said anymore than that, but Sam was relieved to know he was trying.

_Oh, Daniel, I hope you get through to him._ She had believed it when she said that Daniel would be the only one able to make Jack O'Neill listen. She still believed it now. Even with the stamp the colonel would instinctively turn to Daniel if he only _knew_ Daniel was there.

_Even when he doesn't remember who Daniel is. He'll know him. He'll recognize something in him and know he has to listen to him._ She gazed at the high painted fern on the other side of the path, a little wistful smile on her lips. Once upon a time she'd wondered if she and the colonel could be more than CO and subordinate or team mates. More than friends.

Jack O'Neill had featured wildly and vividly in her fantasies for a while – back in their first year or so. She'd realized pretty soon that there might be some UST but no roaring fire. She had moved on without regrets. And whatever spark had been between them for a while was nothing compared to the torch the colonel and Daniel carried for each other. They'd gone from honeymoon to old married couple over the years, finishing each others sentences, having one-word and non-verbal conversations by just sharing looks. They were bickering or egging each other on and crawling up the walls with worry whenever the other one was injured or MIA... and she had always wondered if they even KNEW.

Apparently Daniel had.

Now she hoped for all their sakes that the colonel's torch for Daniel was burning bright enough to lead him back to where he belonged.

**ooo**

Daniel had been on the look-out for The Others ever since he talked to the boy, but if they were close by, watching, they weren't making themselves known. He briefly wondered if Oma kept them distracted somehow or if they had suddenly lost interest in him. Maybe they had bigger fish to fry – who knew? He wasn't going to hunt them down and ask.

When he'd given Jack's dog tags to Danny he hadn't been sure it was a wise decision. Even though he felt scorned by Jack's fling with – to use the boy's name for him – 'funny-hair-guy', he had to admit he'd never seen Jack more relaxed, more in sync with himself than on this world. Had never seen him more _happy_. Part of him still believed Jack had found more peace here than anywhere else and it felt wrong to take that away from him.

But he was just parroting Oma's sermon, wasn't he? She had fed him all that wisdom about acceptance and no-interfering. About letting things take their own turn. It was Oma's wish that he leave it all behind and not concern himself anymore with the lower planes.

She thought she had been so clever to take that part away from him that still clung to his former life, his friends and – even though it had never been fulfilling and happy - his love. But she hadn't been thorough enough when she split him. Seeing Sam had rekindled hope. And reconnecting with Danny had pulled him out this funk enough to make a decision. The right one. Or so he hoped.

And the boy had said Jack already started to remember on his own, so it was only a matter of time before Jack's past – his real past – would catch up with him.

He watched over Sam on her lonely hike through the forest. She found her way easily as if the old woman had put a map into her head. She took breaks to eat and rest and from time to time she pulled out a compass and checked if she was still going into the right direction. Daniel trailed after her, looking out for predators or other dangers lurking between the dense trees. But the most 'dangerous' being he sensed was a white deer who chose to wander on a path parallel to Sam's for a while.

There was a determined spring in her steps even as the day moved on and she pulled off her jacket and tied it around her waist. He blond hair, grown over shoulder length in her time on the planet, was tied back with a leather strip not unlike Jack's. In the late afternoon she sat at a creek and dangled her bare feet in the cool water as she ate wild strawberries. When she had tied her boots again and filled her water pouch she hiked on and Daniel kept following her.

He tried to remember what solid ground had felt like under his feet or holding them in the cold water. What it had been like to have aching limbs and being sweat-drenched from hiking or running. Or to be thirsty. It hadn't been that long ago, really. Why was it so difficult to recall these things?

He was distracted here and there by fox cubs playing on a glade between the high grass and a woodpecker working on his tree hole. He wondered if the boy would chase the dancing sun rays and climb trees or splash in the creeks.

_Don't you miss all these things, too?_

Maybe. But he didn't have to suffer all those pains and aches, at least physically, that came with having to run for your life, dodging bullets and staffs, throwing yourself head-first to the ground and being ribboned or prodded with pain-sticks. He could go wherever he wanted, mostly undetected, watch the universe and study its beauties and tragedies. If he managed to learn how to reach that state of calm and stoic detachment the other ascended beings seemed to be in – he'd truly be free.

As the day came to an end Sam reached a small settlement of crooked houses, not more than four or five, on a wide glade. A man chopped wood and two woman stood by a well deeply in conversation as they pulled up buckets of water.

She stopped, still in the shades of trees, and considered what to do. She waited for a while, probably hoping the people were going home soon. When that didn't happen she began looking for a way to circumvent the houses, but the scrubs were dense and thorny around here. Lots of wild blackberries and bushes.

Knowing his friend as well as he did Daniel could follow her train of thoughts. There was no reason for anyone to suspect her of being more than just a tired wanderer. These people would probably even offer to let her stay the night in a shed or a stable. But what if someone had figured out Jadah crossed the line – what if someone came after her?

There was only one road leading into the forest by Jadah's house and very few walkable paths between the trees. What if someone asked these people about strangers who'd passed through? They would remember a wanderer, especially a woman, traveling alone by foot.

Sam retreated deeper between the trees and carefully stepped off the path, toeing her way through the blackberries until she was sure she couldn't be seen from the path or the glade. Dusk began to settle between trees like cobwebs and Sam found a stump to settle on and wait for the night. She unpacked her chicken breast and started to eat it slowly, savoring every bite by the looks of it.

Daniel tried to recall what chicken tasted like as he watched her lick the fat off her fingertips.

_Don't you miss all these things, too?_

He wished he wouldn't come back to that pointless question time and again.

Once it was dark and the moon was hidden by clouds, Sam shouldered her pack and, as silent as a cat on the prowl, crossed the small village and merged with the forest on the glade's other side.

An hour's walk away, she found a ditch enclosed by dead trees. It didn't look particularly comfortable, but dry and sheltered. Sam pulled off her pack, slipped into her jacket and, using the pack as a pillow, curled up in her ditch.

Moments later she bolted up again and sat motionless, her head tilted, trying to pick up any sound that didn't belong to the forest. She relaxed, lay down again and then kept staring at the dark tree tops with wide eyes.

Daniel made himself seen, glittering silver like the sage, and slipped in beside her, ruffling her hair gently. 'Go to sleep, Sam, I'll keep watch.'

"Daniel," she whispered, exhausted. "Have you seen the colonel again? Have you talked to him?"

'Not yet. But... I think he'll be there when the time comes.' At least he hoped so.

Sam nodded, closed her eyes and was asleep.

**ooo**

Despite the blueprints and descriptions in the journal, Jelica's 'canyon' was hard to find. Vegetation had changed, trees had grown big. When Sam finally got there she almost fell into it. She had been hiking for almost three days and exhaustion was catching up with her.

The forest had turned more and more into something out of a gloomy fantasy movie. There seemed to be very few young trees now and the old ones were huge, almost as big as Redwood trees in California she'd seen as a child. Daylight broke only sparsely through their branches and thick foliage so the woods were always dunked in a crepuscular bottle-green. The ground was covered with silver sage, more purple painted fern or other plant life that didn't require much sun.

The 'canyon' as Jelica had described it in her book was more like a crater in the ground with no visible way leading down. Its craggy rims were covered with moss and crawling plants such as yellow Berberis (good for treating arthritis) and white Quinces. None of them were in bloom now, though, and the crater melted perfectly into the dense coppices, which was why she almost tumbled into it head first.

She walked the perimeter and estimated it to be about 4 kilometers in length and approximately 5 to 6 km wide. She guessed it to be 0.5 to 1 km deep, give or take a couple meters. Probably an extinct volcano, she assumed. Without taking soil samples she couldn't be one hundred percent positive, but it was the next best explanation.

Tightening the straps of her backpack so it wouldn't slide off, she gazed down at the green covered bottom. She could hear the faint gargling of water. That was good.

She found her footing between rocks and strong plant roots clinging to the ground as she tread with care on her way to the bottom. There was no path, but she managed to stay upright and didn't have to actually climb down. The most difficult part of reaching the ground was not to trip over the roots that covered every inch of the ground. Once or twice she had a close call with flat boulders hidden under the thick layers of plants and she had to hike around a dead tree trunk that was embedded into a mess of ivy.

Once she had reached the bottom she found the creek, embedded in a bank of rocks and high ferns, and filled her pouch with the crystal clear water. When she dipped her hand in she found the water was tepid. The creek had to come from a thermal spring somewhere deep in the soil. It meant the volcano wasn't dead after all. It was only asleep and had magma within the planet's crust. But she had no reason to worry. Per evidence this volcano hadn't erupted in several hundred years and she was confident it wouldn't start spitting pieces of rocks and lava right now.

The plant she was looking for only blossomed during full moon and it was only at that time she could use its blooms for the drug. She had a detailed drawing and description in her pack and hoped to find it tomorrow. The next steps were going to be tricky. She had a week from here to start manufacturing the drug. She needed to have the basics by the time full moon came around, then add this plant and pray she had followed every step precisely the way Jelica had written it down. Then she would pray that it helped sustain Teal'c until they had found a way to leave this planet and find a new symbiote. She also hoped that she wasn't too late. That junior hadn't already matured.

If that happened there was no hope for Teal'c because he would either be a host by now or he had killed junior and himself.

What little daylight there was left dwindled quickly, so she decided to look for a good place to sleep. Sam followed the creek upstream, her eyes scanning the area for possible shelters. She found large bushes of Evening Stock, patches of white flowered Night Phlox and pink Catchfly. But still the sage and ferns were the most dominant species.

However, she also spotted younger trees down here. Most of them were crippled and suffering from the lack of sun, but they stubbornly withstood the odds of nature and, with plenty of water and what little light they could get, thrived as best as possible.

She was probably two or three klicks north of where she had come down when she saw something structural in the coppices. As she got closer she could make out a small hut, put together with rocks and loam. The roof was gone, but all four walls were still intact and there was an entrance and two window holes facing the creek.

The hut had the somberness and slight out-of-time feeling of deserted places. It didn't take long to determine that no one had been here in a very long time. Sam had her – in a real fight-or-flight situation totally useless – knife out as she entered the building, but aside from lots of dust and the alarmed squeaks of mice or some other small mammal, she was alone.

Wishing for a flashlight she went back outside and opened her pack. A candle and matches was all the light she had, but it would do. Jadah's comfortable home with the brightly lit fireplace, the cozy couch and rocker seemed to be light years away.

Going by what the light of her candle showed her she determined that the square single-room cabin was mostly empty. There was an old wooden table in the middle, probably rotten and full of wormholes. She found a fireplace at the back with a soot-blackened kettle hanging from a rusty iron chain. On the left wall she could see shelves with cobweb covered jars and bottles. Some where broken and some weren't, but it wasn't possible to figure out the contents as night was falling fast.

She found no traces of the missing roof inside the house. She suspected that it hadn't caved in from age, but that a storm had ripped it away.

She had to take a closer look around tomorrow, do some recon.

"I think I found Jelica's lab," she said. Glancing at the ceiling, or rather where the ceiling was supposed to be, she saw outlines of trees and patches of cloudy night sky far up. "Okay, time to get comfy then."

She had a lot of work to do tomorrow. She needed to clean this place, set up her own temporary lab and start preparing Teal'c's drug. She also had to make sure she wasn't going to starve out here and she needed to built some kind of makeshift roof in case the weather changed for the worse.

She left her pack by the fireplace and carried her candle outside where she placed it on one of the window sills. Armed with her knife she started cutting branches off the nearest tree and stripped them of leaves until she had her arms full of firewood.

Later, when she sat by the fire and poked a stick at the burning embers to keep the flames alive, she tried to ignore her growling stomach. She still had half a loaf of bread and a chunk of summer sausage, but she needed to ration her food. Hopefully she'd be able to trap a hare or a squirrel tomorrow and find some wild berries or mushrooms to go with it.

She remembered MRE and how often they had sat around a fire, moaning about the awful food. Still, the MRE were more digestible than some of the alien meals they had been exposed to over the years. Not to mention the weird side effects some off world cuisine had triggered. Once the colonel had gotten himself married just by eating a pizza-like cake. Cultural misunderstandings were always a high possibility when dealing with alien natives.

One time Daniel had urged them all to drink some ceremonial tea in order to not upset the natives. They had experienced very strange delusional dreams. They'd been told those dreams were guideposts to their futures. Sam remembered running through a field with huge mutated pink watermelons, trying to escape some ant-like creature – the size of a pony – that wanted to eat her. The colonel had not shared his own dream with them, but had pointed out the resemblance of hers to a movie about someone shrinking their kids.

And then there had been weed-planet – christened so by Colonel O'Neill - where smoking was a huge part of any ritual. Daniel had suggested going with the flow. Sam could only recall fragments of what had happened later - which was probably a good thing. She had been told by the tribe's Chieftain that her singing voice was quite beautiful.

Apparently Teal'c had engaged in a wrestling match with someone and woken up with several bruises and a black eye. They never found out what had happened to his poor wrestling partner.

Daniel and the colonel had been found mostly undressed, slumped over an altar in a very interesting position. Colonel O'Neill had worn several flower chains around his neck and Daniel's face had been covered in blue paint – someone had drawn squiggles all over his forehead and cheeks.

Sam and Teal'c had suspected that the colonel painted Daniel's face and Teal'c had thought the flower chains and blue squiggles might have been part of some sort of mating ritual. However, Sam had advised him not to ask and so they'd never gotten the juicy details.

The official report had been vague, the briefing awkward and Daniel had holed himself up in his office for almost a week after that particular mission. The colonel had been very tight-lipped and rigid whenever they'd ended up in the same room. Sam didn't know if they'd talked eventually. Things, as it usually happened, returned to normal between them, but it had taken a bit longer than usual.

And now that she thought about this she suddenly wondered if the edge that had started to creep into the friendly bickering between Daniel and the colonel over the last year or so, before Kelowna, had something to do with that particular mission. If, whatever had chipped away at their friendship, started there. Or if it was something that had grown gradually over time because of their different ways in handling things in the field.

It had been very subtle at first. Glares that wouldn't soften, jokes that fell flat or were made and returned with an icy edge to the words. Bantering had turned into flat-out rudeness and curt exchanges of snide comments. They had still stood strong together, shoulder to shoulder, when push had come to shove, but the daily work routine had always seemed to be strained when the two of them had to interact in any way.

Sam and Teal'c had noticed it at some point because the colonel and Daniel being out of sync affected the whole team dynamic. Sam, who used to spent time with Daniel outside of work, sensed a subtle change in her friend even when the colonel wasn't around. It was like something heavy had settled on Daniel's shoulders. Something that added to the weight of emotional baggage he had carried around – and tended to ignore most of the time – anyway...

...Teal'c, who rarely engaged in talks about interpersonal relationships, assumed O'Neill had issues with Daniel becoming more independent and being in less need of protection out in the field – which resulted in more arguments and clashing of minds when it came to command decisions.

More often than not Daniel forced his way past Colonel O'Neill's orders – and turned out to be right. But Sam didn't think that was it. They always worked out and around their different ways to reach the same goal and they always had each other's back. And while Daniel was second guessing the colonel a lot, they had always relied on each other when it came down to it. They trusted each other with their lives. All four of them.

They still did, even when things started to change between Daniel and their CO. But they became more distant somehow. Daniel was the closest thing to a best friend the colonel ever had as long as Sam knew him. But little by little that friendship dwindled down to a more or less work-related relationship.

When Daniel started to make excuses to stay away from team nights, Sam really started to worry.

Something was driving them apart. And neither one of them was willing to open up and clue them in. She didn't expect Colonel O'Neill to pour his heart out to her, not even to Teal'c. He just didn't do that, period. But Sam and Daniel were like siblings. They went out to dinner sometimes, watched movies or played pool. They hit the gym together at the SGC, had lunch together and stole from each other's cookie stash.

She tried to coax it out of him one evening over pizza. She got a glimpse of what the problem was, but she also sensed that Daniel was only giving her part of a much deeper truth.

He smiled lugubriously and shook his head. "You know what it's like between Jack and me. We bark, but we don't bite." He shrugged it off, but he couldn't look her in the eye and fiddled with the bottle opener instead. His behavior reminded her of the colonel who never seemed to be able to keep his hands still, especially if he was stressed or bored.

"I don't know, Daniel. The two of you seem... bitter. Almost..." She swirled the red wine in her glass. It looked like a tiny storm was making waves, "estranged."

"We've had some rough times." Daniel put the opener down and took a sip of his Chardonnay. "Things aren't... easy between us. Among other things he's still pissed at me for joining the Goa'uld Summit in the Hasara system."

Sam frowned. "He is? But he didn't utter a word during the mission prep or the briefing when Ren Au made the request to recruit you. We were all worried, of course, but you volunteered and if he had issues..."

"He knew the Tok'ra's plan was a one time opportunity to get them all. He also knew I was the logical choice for going in there. That doesn't mean he had to like it."

"So... he tried to talk you out of it?"

"No. He, uh..." Daniel stared at the black TV screen for a moment, then looked at her and smirked, but it was more an annoyed grimace. "He was trying to find a way to tag along. Said he was going in as well, pretending to be mute or something since he doesn't speak Goa'uld. I told him the last thing I needed was him trying to babysit me. It'd make things a hell of a lot more complicated if I had to keep an eye on him as well so he wouldn't screw things up and then blame it on me. He didn't, uh, take it very well."

Sam blinked. "Whoa, Daniel – has it ever occurred to you that he was just trying to..."

Daniel held up a hand. "Don't, Sam. If it had been Teal'c or you going in there he wouldn't have come up with a stupid idea like that. I'm not saying he wouldn't worry. It's what he does. But he'd trust you both to get through this and not blow it."

"Are you saying the colonel doesn't trust you? Because that's not true." She was dumbfounded. She hadn't anticipated how bad this really was. How deep it ran. "He's not happy to let any of us go into a situation like that without backup. You know that."

Daniel sighed and shook his head. "Honestly? I don't know anymore. He didn't show much of that trust in me during the whole Reese mess either, did he?"

"Daniel, Reese was about to take over the SGC. The base was crawling with replicators. She was too dangerous to be kept... alive. If you want to call it that, since she was a robot in the first place."

"She was going to shut them down. BUT," he raised his voice slightly when she opened her mouth to tell him he couldn't have been 100 percent sure of that, "I admit there's always the possibility that I was wrong. And she had to be shut down one way or the other at least for the time being. I just would have preferred it to go down differently. And that's not the crucial point here, Sam."

"Then what is the point? The two of you need to straighten this out somehow. The colonel has always respected and trusted you more than you probably know and I don't see why that would have changed."

Daniel shook his head. "Let's just say he has his reasons and yes, we need to get past this, somehow. Because if we can't..."

She felt like someone was pouring ice water down her back. He didn't have to spell it out for her to know what he was saying. _If we can't get past this, I'll have to... join another team? Resign? Take some leave? _Something like that.

"If there's anything... If there's any way Teal'c and I can help to solve this..."

"Thanks, Sam. I'm pretty sure we'll sort it out. We always do, sooner or later."...

...The smile of false confidence Daniel flashed at her had stung more than she'd wanted to admit. She had wanted him to trust her and allow her to help him carry this pain – whatever it had been. And she'd been worried about both of them.

She had wondered what had happened to undermine that strong foundation they'd always had. But in the end she never got to the bottom of this. Their mission schedule had been tight and they had enough work related stress to deal with on a daily basis. So whatever was wrong between the colonel and Daniel had stayed between the two of them.

And yet – when Daniel ascended he had reached out to the colonel alone. And she had never seen her CO this broken before. And while the abyss she'd sensed under the smooth, detached surface of 'let's get back to active duty ASAP' during their first team dinner after Daniel's ascension, had proved to her the colonel was still human, it had also scared her.

Sam pulled her jacket more tightly around herself as she watched the flames licking at the wood. She felt edgy and restless. Probably the fact that she was so completely on her own out here was getting to her.

She missed them. Teal'c's quiet strength, the colonel's and Daniel's bickering. She could imagine them so easily, sitting next to her, sipping coffee and sharing power bars. She could almost feel the warmth of their shared comradeship. The teasing and the easiness between them. She'd never been on a unit like SG-1. Had never experienced this kind of closeness on a team before.

She was grateful for remembering them again.

_Hold on for a little while longer, Teal'c. I'm coming_, she thought drowsily. Finally exhaustion took over and she fell asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**II**

"Danny – shoes," Jack said with an audible sigh in his voice.

"Nu-huh, no shoes."

"Yes, shoes."

"No-o." Danny's bottom lip jutted out in disapproval and he crossed his arms, puffing out his chest in his effort of trying to make himself taller.

"Yes."

"Ja-ack."

"I remember these kind of conversations," Jack said with a scowl. "And don't give me that look."

"What look?"

"The one with the eyes..."

"Ja-ack, I always look with my eyes." Said eyes lost the penetrating stare and looked puzzled now.

"Whatever. It didn't work then, it won't work now."

"Worked, too."

"Nope, never did."

Masala held the pair of tiny boots out to the rugrat again. "They are really soft and comfortable. And," she bent down and continued in a stage whisper, "Jack has boots almost like these."

Danny peered at them, then down at Jack's bare feet. "He's not wearing them."

Crap.

"But I will," Jack gratefully followed Masala's lead. "It's going to be a long journey to... wherever it may take us. I'm going to wear my boots. I'm not fond of blisters and, believe me, neither are you."

"I like being barefoot," Danny explained. "I like feeling the ground I'm walking on." He wriggled his dirty toes. "Marble feels cold and smooth, wood is warm and rough, sand tickles."

Masala's mouth twitched and she quickly hid her smile behind her hand. "How about a pair of sandals?"

"Sure, why not," Jack said.

"I don't need shoes," Danny said at the same time.

"Yes, you do."

"Don't."

Hadis' daughter placed the boots on the ground next to Danny. Her long necklaces of colorful glass pearls jingled gently when she straightened up and shook out her flowing green dress. "Why don't you take a look at our sandals, Danny? Maybe you will like them better than the boots. I'll bring some."

"You probably won't have my size. You really don't have to look," Danny said, shaking his head in desperation.

Giving Jack an amused look, she slipped away to find more shoes for Danny to scowl at.

"Nice try, buddy," Jack said dryly and they continued to stare at each other for a moment in a silent battle of wills. Finally he went down on one knee to be on eye level with the most stubborn little man on this and other worlds.

Keeping his voice down so Masala couldn't hear them in the storage room, he said, "Look, kiddo, here's the deal. You want to rescue Teal'c, right?"

"Yes. Daniel said Sam is on her way to get him, but we need to help. We're a TEAM. No one gets left behind. Not. Ever. Your rule, Jack."

He tried not to wince visibly. His rule. The rule of any good leader. The team rule. The rule he had broken on at least one occasion where he'd had the choice to take the other road. Sometimes, out in the field, you had no choice if you wanted to get the rest of your people home. He knew that, he'd been there, done that, got the t-shirt. But when he'd turned his back on Daniel, locked him out and thrown away the key, he'd damaged the whole team in the long run.

It hadn't happened in the field. It might have started there, but even that probably wasn't true. What happened on that planet...

_Blue paint on trembling fingertips, sparkling eyes of the same color, a daring, encouraging grin, an invitation to look and touch..._

...had only been a moment in time, the disaster that had been waiting to happen for a while.

The whole fallout had hit them later. All of them.

But, dammit, he had wanted to protect the team, not destroy it. What else was there to do? He couldn't have done what Daniel wanted him to do. Couldn't have given in to it.

_No,_ he thought bitterly, _you tried to protect yourself. Your career. Your dignity. Your precious reputation. You could have found a way, a compromise. You're just trying to find excuses for being a dick. You've never been a stickler for rules if you don't believe they're good for something. _He could feel those memories coming back again, and he couldn't deal with that now. Later. But not now_. _

Jack bit his lip and focused hard on the kid. Shoes. "Right. We need to be able to move fast to get there in time. So trust me when I say you're gonna need shoes."

Danny sighed and started rubbing his left foot against his right leg. "Really?"

"Really."

"And you're going to wear shoes too?"

"Promise."

Danny toed the pair of leather boots. "These are better than sandals, right?"

"Yeah, but I'll let you have sandals if it means you're going to wear them."

"I need socks," the kid said with another heavy sigh.

"They have cool ones with 'Ba'th Town' written on them," Jack coaxed.

"I want orange socks," Danny said. "I really love orange a LOT."

Jack held out his right hand. "You trying on those boots?"

"Okaaaay." They shook hands to seal the deal and Jack quickly surged to his feet and grabbed a pair of orange socks from a close by shelf. Then he watched as Danny plopped on his butt and pulled them on.

Looking at his feet, he asked, "Can't I just walk in my socks? They're pretty."

"They won't stay pretty if you walk in them."

"Oh! You're right."

"Thank you." Jack clapped himself mentally on the back for being able to reason so well with a four year old – without losing his cool.

Danny grabbed one of the boots and pulled it on, then announced. "Sorry, but it doesn't fit."

Crouching again, Jack tugged the left boot off Danny's right foot and placed it on the other one. He quickly donned boot number two and tied the laces of both before the little terror could get rid of them.

Finally defeated, Danny scrambled to his feet. Jack felt for his toes, found the boots to fit perfectly and instructed him to walk around a bit. Danny took a couple of hesitant steps.

"How do they feel?"

"Dunno. Not bad," he muttered, shuffling around some more. He acted as though he had millstones hanging on his feet.

"C'mon, give them a chance. They look great on you."

Danny gave him a doubtful look, but traipsed from one end of the shop to the other, circling around tables and shelves. When he returned he stopped in front of Jack. "They're kinda okay."

_Thank you_, Jack thought with relief, giving the kid a thumb's up.

Danny jumped up and down and his face brightened. "Hey, Jack! Look what I can do!" Like a kangaroo he hopped from the sock shelf to the shoe shelf and then to the t-shirt racks. "I can jump higher with shoes!"

"See, they are good for something," Jack said with a little grin. O'Neill – 1...

Danny stomped off like he was marching in a parade or like he was a baby elephant.

He was on his third round circling the shop when Masala returned empty handed. "I'm sorry, we don't have any... oh!" She raised her eyebrows at Jack. "How did you convince him to try them?"

Jack shrugged it off. "Kids. Sometimes you have to remind them who's in charge."

Masala smirked, then sobered and looked over at the small pile of purchases on the check out table. "It is true then. You are leaving."

"Yeah." He moved to the counter, picked up the jacket – Danny had chosen green, like his pants – and started fiddling with it. He would have preferred no good-byes or long explanations. But he'd realized over the last two days that he had more ties and responsibilities in Ba'th than he'd thought.

Masala joined him. She started scribbling prices on her notepad and doing the math on what he owed her. "I know it is none of my business..." she started, eyes fixed on her calculations.

_No, it's not_, he thought, but kept his mouth shut. What was he supposed to tell her? We're off to see the wizard? Something she wouldn't understand anyway. He wasn't going to tell her about Carter and Teal'c. It would only lead to more questions he couldn't answer. It was just going to complicate things even more.

"It just happens to be so unexpected," she continued after a moment.

"Been thinking about it for a while now," he offered by way of explanation.

"I see." She crossed out something on her pad. "I kind of... thought you'd settle down. Give Danny a real home."

He turned to look briefly at the munchkin who was standing in front of a wall mirror, staring at his new boots, deep in thought. To Masala he said, "I need to make a living good enough for that to happen. It requires more than a winter job to feed us."

"You could work on the peach farm of Viktor's parents," she suggested. "Dada told me he offered you a job there. I heard pickers get paid well. Food and housing are part of the job offer."

Grabbing that way out, he nodded. "I might."

"And will you be back next spring, buying a house?" Her almond-colored eyes settled on him now and the tentative blossoming of hope made him cringe.

He let go of the small jacket when she tugged at it to look at the price tag and write it down. Grabbing the bull by the horns – something he should have done weeks, if not months, ago – he cleared his throat.

"Masala, you're a great," he couldn't say 'girl' because that's not what she was, even though to him, she'd always be a girl, "you're a lovely woman and if I was twenty years younger, I'd be flattered." He raked his fingers nervously through his hair, noticing for the first time that it was way too long. Not how he _should_ wear it.

She dropped the pen and her delicate hands gripped the edge of the old wooden counter hard. "Jack."

He shook his head, forestalling any reasoning she might come up with. "You should be with someone who deserves you. You and me just isn't right." He was trying to be gentle, but how do you sugar coat something that was going to hurt anyway?

"How can you know without having even tried?" She let go of the table and raised her trembling hands to her necklace, sliding blue, red, green and yellow pearls through her fingers. "I'm not a child. I am fit to marry and be with a man. And I could be a good mother to Danny. He needs a mother and he needs a home. My father would support..."

Oh, yeah. Just what he needed. Not. "Hadis is my friend. I'm not going to make him my father in law and let him," he made air quotations, "support me, us, whatever. You just have to get that idea outta your head. It's not going to happen."

Maybe she just didn't want to listen to gentle. And, frankly, he wasn't really good at being gentle if pushed into a corner.

_Ask Daniel, he could tell you._

She stared at him, her eyes bright with hurt and growing anger. "Tell me, Jack O'Neill, are you running away because you can't stand the thought of commitment? Is that why you are leaving? So you won't have to be a man and build a family?"

He didn't know what to say to that. It served as a good reason for her to believe that's why he was leaving. He shrugged awkwardly. "Sorry. I guess I just don't have it in me."

Her nostrils flared as she let out an angry huff. "It seems I have made a poor error of judgment. But I can assure you, you don't need to flee because of me. I will not make a fool out of myself by lingering and mooning after you." After a breath she added. "Not any longer."...

_You don't have to worry, Jack. I'm not going to follow you around like a lovesick puppy. Let's just pretend this conversation never happened. I can do that, no problem._

Jack tried to pull away from Daniel's voice hammering words back into the merciful empty spaces of missing memories. He didn't stand a chance. He could feel it coming like a tornado now; you could see it from far away and watch it grow and grow, leaving a path of destruction in its wake, until it reaches you.

But before he got hit by another flashback from his 'other life' with full force, a small burr attached itself to his leg and when he looked down, a pair of huge inquiring blue eyes gazed up at him.

Jack put a hand on Danny's head. "Are we taking the boots?"

Danny nodded. Then he asked, "Why are you and Masala fighting?"

"We aren't fighting. Do you want to keep the boots on?" Hadis' daughter asked with a forced smile.

Danny let go of Jack's leg and held out his arms to be picked up, but Jack shook his head. "In a minute. Let me pay first." A slip of paper was pushed into his view. He glanced at it and avoided eye contact when he pulled the money from his pocket and put it on the counter.

Masala stuffed everything he had bought into a paper bag, her movements stiff and robotic. Jack scooped Danny up as he turned away. His other hand snatched the paper bag and he left without looking back or waiting for his change.

_That went well,_ he thought annoyed when they were out in the hustle and bustle of the street. He wanted to put Danny on Thor's back, but the boy wriggled and squirmed.

"Put me down, put me down, Jack."

"Why? What's up? We're going to meet Mikele at the barn." But he put Danny down anyway. Holding the little wriggle worm with one arm was a lost cause.

No sooner had the kid's feet touched the ground than he turned and run back into the shop before Jack could get a hold on him. "Hey! Get back here!"

"Gotta say goodbye to Masala!"

_I'm not going in there again,_ Jack thought and leaned against the door frame. An elongated head cuffed his shoulder. Jack pushed back. "You stay outta this."

Thor's brow shoved against him once more, harder this time.

"I should have named you Bra'tac. You are nothing like those Asgard fellas. Except for the color, maybe," Jack grumbled. "Bra'tac, however, is pretty much like you."

Thor pulled his lips away from his huge, yellow teeth.

"Stop laughing at me." He tugged at one of those long ears, just hard enough to make Thor shake his head and back off a little. "The real Thor never laughed at me. Well, probably on the inside..."

Thor snorted.

Jack was going to miss him.

When he craned his neck to peer into the shop he was met with the sight of Masala crouching in front of Danny who had placed his hands on either side of her face as they gazed at each other.

Knowing about the star child's ability to pass on images through touching, Jack wasn't sure this was good. But whatever Danny was showing Masala, it was too late to intervene now. When he pulled his hands away the young woman embraced him and held him close for a moment, whispering something into his ear. Then she stood and wiped a hand over her eyes.

If she had sensed Jack watching them, she chose not to look his way as she rushed past the check-out table to the storage area.

Danny came over, frowning. "Grownups are so complicated. Was I complicated like that, Jack?"

He picked his star child up and planted him on Thor's back. "Sometimes."

"Then it's good I'm small now," Danny decided. "Things are easier."

Jack squinted up at him as he led Thor away from the shop. "They are?"

"Yep. And more fun."

_You're probably right about that_, Jack thought.

They walked past the well where the street musicians were holding an impromptu concert. An enchanting melody of flute, guitar and violin followed them and when they crossed the invisible border from the bazaar to the net of alleys that would eventually lead to the Lance, a sax joined in.

Danny swayed and hummed in tune with the music and Jack had to remind him to keep his hands on Thor's neck.

"Is Masala going to be okay?" he asked when the music became more distant.

"She'll be fine. She understands now," Danny said cryptically.

"Understands... what exactly? You didn't tell her where we going, didya?"

"No, that's classified, right?"

Jack bit back a laugh. He hadn't heard that one in quite a while. "Yeah, kinda. So... what'd you show her?"

Danny shrugged. "I told her why you can't marry her and all that fuss. Hey, Jack, is it time for lunch soon?"

Jack opened his mouth to interrogate Danny for more details – and snapped it shut again. He didn't want to know. By this time tomorrow they'd be gone and it was unlikely they would return to Ba'th. If all went well, they'd find the Stargate and go home.

Home.

Jack had a vague idea of what his home was like. A house, a backyard, a telescope on his roof. A fridge that was mostly empty except for beer and eggs (omelets) or steaks (BBQ). A fireplace he liked, a bed that was way too big for him, a guest room no one ever stayed in except for Daniel from time to time.

_Home_ wasn't a place Jack looked forward going back to.

"...can't marry funny-hair-guy either, you know?" He caught the last part of Danny's prattling.

He felt his eyebrows climbing up. "What?"

"Daniel said you wouldn't marry funny-hair-guy, but I'm just saying so you won't get funny ideas."

"Funny ideas..." Jack parroted.

"Uh-huh. We've got to go on a mission. If you marry him we haveta drag him along and he'll just be in the way all the time," Danny explained sternly.

Jack kept his eyes fixed on the cobblestone alley ahead, trying not to laugh or sound freaked. Danny and Daniel had talked about him and Mohawk? And marriage arrangements? _What the...?_ "You're absolutely right. Thank you for pointing that out, Danny. What would I do without you, eh?"

A second later Jack realized what that meant. Daniel knew about him and Mohawk. Meaning he probably had watched them out there at the ruins... _Crap. _

Danny said graciously. "I guess you could say goodbye to him if you have to."

"No, thanks. Actually, funny-hair-guy isn't interested in a second date."

"Oh." Then, after a pause. "I'm sorry."

Jack snorted. "No, you're not."

A giggle floated down from Thor's back. "No, I'm not." After another pause. "But I'm sorry for you if you really really liked him lots and lots."

"I liked him," Jack said with a shrug. "But probably not lots and lots."

"Jack?"

"Danny?"

"Do you like me lots and lots?"

Jack looked up at his star child and smiled. "Lots and lots and lots. But I hope you don't expect me to marry you."

That made Danny laugh and his mind went on another track, which was probably for the best. "The princess of Ba'th wants to marry me. She says we'll live in a palace by the sea with lots of spires and lots of servants and lotsa pretty dresses for her to wear."

"Sounds like a plan. Did you say yes?"

"Nooo. I can't marry her. We have to find Sam and Teal'c, remember?" He sighed. "Mania sure deserves a palace and dresses and servants, don't you think? She's just as pretty as Sha're was."

"Sha're didn't have a palace or servants," Jack reminded him. "But she was still happy on Abydos." As soon as the words had left his mouth he realized two things in a split second. He had used Daniel's and Sha're's story as a fairy tale for his tours at the ruins. And he remembered the real ending of that fairy tale now - and wanted to kick himself for opening his big mouth.

He raked his mind for something to lead Danny away from this conversation to other topics. "I'm going to give Thor to Mikele. The princess of Ba'th will keep her royal horse at least."

Danny beamed down at Jack. Either he didn't remember the whole story of Sha're and her death or he had decided not to go there. "YES! And if Mikele makes loads of money with your pottery stuff he can buy Mania a new dress!"

"And lollipops," Jack agreed.

"And Ranja can have lotsa cake. He's always hungry, you know?"

"I never noticed," Jack said dryly.

"And their mama can stop taking money from strange men," Danny said happily.

Jack didn't reply to that. He hoped Mikele and Jorge were going to have enough income to make a difference soon. But even with the help Hadis had offered them to build a real business – not the lazy from-hand-to-mouth thing Jack had been doing - it would take a while until Mikele's family made enough money to sustain themselves without their mother's extra work.

First, though, Mikele had to stop acting like a petulant brat and actually take what Jack was offering. Jack had expected him to jump at the opportunity to do pottery and make money with it. Instead his young friend had been mulish and sullen, just shrugged and scowled and neither declined or accepted Jack's proposition.

Jack had sealed the deal for him anyway.

They made a detour to buy Shawarma for lunch – grilled beef shavings from a spit, tomato and cucumber slices wrapped in bread – and reached the barn around noon. Jack placed Danny and their lunch bags on the bench and went to get a bucket of water for Thor.

"Don't feed him your lunch," he reminded the kid.

But Danny was already digging into his Shawarma, his mouth stuffed with bread and meat. "And don't eat mine, too," Jack hastened to say. How could a small child eat that much? Okay, there was Ranja, of course. But adult Daniel had always been a picky eater, as far as Jack recalled it. Or rather he'd mostly forgotten to eat, especially when he'd been engrossed in his work.

"Mppfff," Danny replied, shaking his head.

"And try not to choke on it." Shaking his head Jack placed the full bucket at Thor's feet, patted the mule's neck and went inside to look for Mikele who was supposed to get another lesson at the pottery wheel today.

However, instead of meeting the redheaded preteen he was almost run down by Jorge who stormed out of the storage room. They only avoided colliding because Jack sidestepped quickly enough.

"Whoa! Where's the fire!"

Gleaming dark eyes met his, making the guy look even more grim than usual. "The little rat, I'm going to kill him. I'm going to tear his heart out and roast it over a fire! I'm going to hang him by his feet and make him eat sand!"

Jorge tried to push past him, but Jack blocked his way. "What the hell happened?"

"What happened?! Oh, you are going to love this. Take a look!" Turning on the spot, the young man stomped back where he had come from and Jack followed suit.

At first he could only see Jorge's impressive back in the grubby shirt blocking the doorway. Then the guy stepped into the storage room and moved to the left, giving Jack a grand view on the mess.

He felt his jaw hitting the ground. "What the..."

Jorge kicked one of the larger pieces of what used to be a bowl. It trundled across the floor and hit another shard with a clicking sound. "He went mad. Started throwing stuff to the ground! I could hear it when I came in. Now he's hiding somewhere. Because he knows I'm going to tear each limb from him, slowly, and break every single bone in his scrawny body!"

Jack let his eyes skim over the damage. Two boards of the shelf were wiped clean, its contents scattered all over the floor, some of Danny's artful little animals among them.

He didn't get it.

He'd thought he knew the kid. Mikele wasn't an angel – you didn't grow up around here being innocent and wide eyed for long. But he wasn't a rowdy, had never been aggressive or mean. And yet – smashing Danny's animals was exactly that; mean.

Jack wasn't too worried about the loss of some pottery. The kids could make more and they had to work on stocking up for next summer anyway. It was the cruelty of destroying Danny's work that really got to him.

"Did he say anything?" he ground out after a moment of stunned silence.

"No! He just ran! We spent three days making all this! Three damn days, molding and firing and glazing! I'm going to..."

Jack clamped a hand around a bulky shoulder. The guy was almost as tall as him and he was prepared to be backhanded or punched, but Jorge just glared at him. "No one is tearing off limbs or killing anyone. You need to calm down."

He wasn't sure whether it was Jorge's anger he was trying to deflate or his own.

Jorge blew his long bangs away from his square face. "Are you saying it's okay what he did? Come on, O'Neill! The devil must gotten into him or something! He's gone completely mad!"

"He's just angry."

The small voice drew their attention away from the sight of destruction. Danny gazed at them with huge eyes. When he started to enter the room Jack let go of Jorge and quickly picked him up. The bug was wearing shoes now, but if he started digging through the shards he'd end up with cuts on his hands.

"He broke my animals," Danny said sadly, leaning his blond head against Jack's shoulder.

"Not all of them." He tried to forestall tears and pointed at another board. "There are some left, see? Camels and dolphins. And even a turtle." _And he's going to replace every single one he broke. I'll make sure of that even if it's the last thing I do around here_, he thought grimly.

Danny nodded and gave Jack a little smile. "It's not so bad then, is it?"

Jorge growled. "He smashed bowls and jugs, too. Hadis was going to buy most of this from us. It would have been our first income. Stupid idiot."

"It's not too late to make new ones for Hadis," Danny pointed out. "Right, Jack?"

"Right." He turned to Jorge. "Get a broom,"

His hot-headed young friend glared at him. "What?!"

"You heard me. Get a broom and start sweeping."

"No way! Mikele can clean up this mess – once I'm through with him. If he's still alive then!"

"You're the only one wearing shoes." When Danny started to pipe up he hastily added. "The only one wearing shoes and big enough to wield the broom."

"I can handle a broom," Danny said, poking a finger into Jack's chest.

"Danny, the broom is twice as big as you are," Jack said, giving Jorge a warning look. The last thing he needed was the kid running around in this mess and making it even worse or cutting himself after all.

The youngster rolled his eyes and shuffled out. Moments later he returned with the besom and started sweeping.

"The little shrimp is right, though. Mikele's mad. And you can't really blame him," Jorge grumbled after a moment where the clattering of broken clay was the only sound in the room.

"We have no choice," Danny said, still sad.

Jorge stopped sweeping and leaned heavily on the besom. He looked at Jack and shrugged. "I don't know about that. But I know one thing. I didn't have real work since last winter and helping the carrot-head with this new pottery business is a chance for me to earn real money. If the rat blew it with this... if Hadis decides he's not going to work with us or if you," his coal-colored eyes narrowed, "decide you're not going through with this after all now, I have to go back to the docks working my ass off for a hot meal every day. That's not what I want, but no one is going to give a useless, clumsy bum like me work that pays well." He spat on the ground to underline his words.

Danny tugged at Jack's shirt. "Is that true, Jack?" To Jorge he said – from the bottom of his little heart, "You're not clumsy and useless. No one is." Jack's shirt was tugged on harder. "Right, Jack?"

Jack nodded. When his shirt got dangerously close to being ripped apart by the persistent hand, he covered Danny's fingers with his and gently pulled them away. "I'm not going back on my word. And neither is Hadis."

Jorge stared at him. "You won't? Not even after what he did."

"Oh, he's going to hear about this. But no, not even after what he did." Jack had to leave either way. Whatever the kids did with their lives from here on, it was out of his hands. But at least he had tried to give them some perspective.

The deal was simple and served all parties. The boys were going to take over Jack's stock and equipment. Hadis would take Mikele as his apprentice and teach him everything he knew about pottery and how to run a business. Jorge was going to be paid for working the kiln and digging clay. Thor would get a permanent home with Hadis and he and the boys could share the mule for work.

Mikele was going to get paid enough to support his mama. Once the guys had their own income Hadis would get part of their profit, but Jack had made sure his friend ran a fair bargain. Until the pottery shop carried itself, Hadis had a cheap and eager laborer in Mikele who was smart and reliable. And he also got his own clay digger and someone who'd take over the long and time consuming process of firing.

At least that's the way Jack had wanted things to go. Now...

"You two know something I don't?" He looked from Danny to Jorge with raised eyebrows. "What could _possibly_ have possessed him to do this? Enlighten me? Anyone?"

Jorge started sweeping again. "Well, O'Neill, if you don't know that then maybe he's right to be mad."

Danny pulled his hand out of Jack's, wrapped both arms around his neck and said, "It's not your fault. He'll understand. And your Shawarma's getting cold. I didn't eat it. But maybe Thor did."

"Oh, crap." Jack hurried out, almost expecting the mule to have eaten his lunch complete with the paper bag.

But Thor was dozing in the sun, his eyes half closed, and not giving a damn about the Shawarma in its soggy tomato juice dripping bag. Jack picked it up, sniffed it and peeled the paper off. It had gone cold and he found he had lost his appetite anyway.

He suddenly remembered take out pizza and Chinese. And phones. They had ordered pizza the evening Daniel had come to him to talk about what had happened on weed-planet...

...Blue paint on his fingertips and the contrast between soft skin and scruffy whiskers. Circles and lines. Flowers and kisses...

...Whoa. Flowers and kisses? Felt like something out of a romance novel.

He went back inside and put his lunch on the work counter to get it out of the sun. "There's a Shawarma here if you're hungry," he called out to Jorge. "It's cold though. I gotta go find Mikele. I'm taking Thor. We're faster that way."

The answer was a mutter of acknowledgment

He jiggled Danny a bit. "Wanna take another ride on the royal horse, buddy?"

"YES!"

It was amazing how easily this kid bounced back. Sad about his broken clay figures just a couple of minutes ago and back to excited and lively already.

_I'm almost jealous here,_ Jack thought as he got Thor ready to leave.

They mounted and left the barn's courtyard.

"Where to?" Jack asked as Thor carried them down the backstreet.

Danny cocked his head. "Where does he like to be the most?"

Jack didn't have to think about that. "At the theater."

Mikele spent a lot of his free time at the ruins. He loved practicing with the ball when no one else was there and he liked sitting on the tiers, counting his money or watching the clouds and the ocean in the distance. And, of course, he was usually there when Jack guided tourists around the ruins.

When their schedules matched they sat there together, having lunch or dinner. Meaning Jack forked out the food and Mikele – and the twins who were often with him – dug in to fill their empty bellies.

They had done that a lot if he thought about it.

Jack liked kids and kids liked him. He knew it was like that in his other life, too. Things like that were coming back to him more easily now. It was like his 'real' past had started slotting itself back into order. He knew he'd always hit if off great with kids even after Charlie's death.

Skaara, who had probably been somewhere between Mikele and Jorge age-wise when they'd met, was the first person Jack had allowed to get close to him again after what had happened to Charlie. The boy had pummeled himself into his heart even before Daniel really tore down Jack's barricades so relentlessly.

It had been strangely painful and healing to spend time with the young Abydonian and to realize there was someone looking up to him again. It had been unsettling to feel that kind of responsibility again. He had lost his son because he'd failed the one small person that trusted him unconditionally. Skaara had reminded him of that every single moment. He had given Jack that same trust. And Jack had been about to betray that trust by blowing up the whole damn planet.

Daniel hadn't just saved Jack. He had saved a whole world – from Ra and Jack O'Neill's suicide mission. The Abydonians loved Daniel and treated him as one of their own. But when Skaara had smiled and saluted Jack or clicked that lighter, it was as if a little part of Charlie had returned. And Jack had taken home the memory of that brave young warrior and his people.

So, yeah, Jack liked kids. There was really not much difference between Earth kids and alien kids when it came down to it. When he'd come to Ba'th – however that had actually happened – he'd made a couple of friends and a couple of business choices, but hadn't been looking for any kind of commitment that went any further than 'I scratch your back, you scratch mine'. It was always helpful to know people and to establish some give-and-take relationship.

But he'd been bored when he hadn't been working or hanging out with Hadis and Viktor – who worked a hell of a lot more than Jack – and so he'd started to fool around with the boys and a ball and entertain himself, and them, with juggling and making up stupid stories for the little ones. Stuff like that. Most of the local brats seemed to like him, but for some reason Mikele and the twins stuck around more often and Jack had let them.

He should have known it was going to come back to bite him.

"He's mad at me," he voiced his thought process to Danny who was tousling Thor's mane.

"Yep," Danny said.

"Oh, for cryin' out loud," Jack growled, and then blinked when the kid actually giggled. "What?"

"You used to say that a LOT," Danny informed him.

"Yeah?"

"Uh-huh. And you used to say 'crap' a lot. Like; crap, Daniel, don't touch that, and; for cryin' out loud, Daniel, get out of there. And; Daniel, that's a load of crap. Or..."

"All right, all right, I get it," he groaned. Poking Danny's belly he added, "You used to get into trouble a lot. I remember that."

Danny stared up at Jack, a cheeky little smile playing on his lips. "Not me. That was Daniel. I'm just Danny. I never get into trouble."

"Of course you don't." He was going to remind the bug of that the next time he took off on his own.

They used a different road to circumvent the bazaar and made their way along the harbor to a small path leading into the hills and to the ruins. There was much less traffic here than on the main road and Jack knew the kids often took this way to get back to town.

"He should thank me," he continued their earlier conversation. "He'll get the best mule ever. He can build himself a business if he doesn't screw it up. He has very clever hands, you know, a good feeling for pottery. Instead he's being a brat. If he doesn't lose the attitude, Hadis won't put up with him for long."

"But he's just a kid," Danny said, sounding way too grownup for Jack's liking.

"He grew up around here, he knows what he's going to get is a once in a lifetime opportunity and he better take it." But Danny was right. Mikele was still just a kid, trying to survive and cope with a life that, on the outside, seemed like a jackpot. No school, not much supervision, a beach, the ocean, ruins to play in... but when you just scratched at the surface there was also hunger, poverty and, sometimes, abuse. Those kids had no advocates.

Jack had no means to change that, but he'd straighten things out with Mikele and make sure the boy didn't throw away his chance of a better life.

The theater, in its ancient immensity, lay deserted in the sunlight. There weren't any tourists around and no kids playing in the arena. A bird circled the cloudless blue sky above their heads, looking for prey. It was peaceful; something Jack always liked about the place when he'd been alone out here.

He freed Thor of his bridle and blanket and let him trot off to graze. Once he'd stashed everything away in his small shelter, he and Danny went to the arena. Shielding his eyes from the glaring sun with one hand, Jack searched the rows of seats. The kid started climbing the uneven stone steps, calling out for Mikele. When Jack didn't spot the redhead anywhere, he followed Danny.

As they reached the top Jack was almost sure the boy had taken off or was hiding somewhere. But when they made it halfway around the rotunda, Danny tugged at his hand and pointed to a lone figure sitting on the ground by a canopied section of tiers.

Mikele hugged something to his chest and Jack wasn't surprised to see it was the ball. He'd probably taken his anger out on it earlier and then tried to make a quick exit when he'd heard them coming. However, Jack knew Mikele would have found a way to disappear if he really didn't want to be found.

Jack stopped several feet away and held out his hands in the universal 'I come in peace yadda yadda' gesture. Or, in this case, more a 'I'm not going to beat the living daylights out of you with a stick' gesture.

"Don't run," he warned. "I came up here to talk. Just that. But I won't be a happy camper if I have to chase you halfway across these ruins and force you to listen to me."

Mikele squinted up against the sun and gave him a fleeting glance, then dropped his gaze to Danny. "I'm sorry about your animals."

Danny crossed the distance between them and sat down next to Mikele. "I know. You can make new ones."

Mikele shook his head. "I don't think so. I'm glad you're not mad, though." He bit his lip and bent forward, carefully putting the ball on the dusty ground. Then he stood and kicked it over to Jack. "It's yours. I guess you take it with you."

Jack stopped the ball with his foot, balanced it on his toes, kicked it up and caught it with one hand. "Actually, I was looking for someone to keep it for me." He threw it back and Mikele's hands shot out, his fingers gripping the round leather hard.

"I don't want to play anymore," the boy spat, hugging the ball to him again.

Jack shrugged. "Maybe the others want to keep playing."

Mikele pressed his lips into a thin white line. But he didn't let go of the ball. Finally he ground out, "You made Mania cry. When she heard you were leaving she cried." He wiped a dirty hand over his freckled face and even from where he stood Jack could see that Mikele's little sister hadn't been the only one who had cried.

He was so screwed. He should never have let them get so close to him. But then he never expected to be forced to leave just like that. He'd never thought he'd be anywhere else but... here.

"I'm sorry." What else could he possibly say? He looked at Danny who wasn't a big help in this. Jack's little sidekick had his head down, looking miserable. He said it again. "I'm sorry. But there's a reason we have to leave. I don't have much of a choice."

He walked over to them and Mikele darted backwards until his back hit the pillars of the stone canopy. "I don't care that you're leaving. My father left us and I didn't care. You can whip me because I broke your stupid pottery, but I don't care!"

He tried to break away to the left, but Jack was faster and took him by his shoulders. "Listen to me, Mikele. It's your pottery now. You can help to give the twins a better life. Maybe send them to school next year. This is your chance. You might not make it off the Lance until you're much older, but Hadis is a great guy. He's going to help you to make smart business choices and double your income. You can trust him."

"I trusted _you_," Mikele said, pulling up his nose. "To teach me everything. I hoped you'd make me your apprentice."

"I taught you the basics, Hadis is going to teach you everything else. He's far better at this than I am. Think about it – he was born and raised on the Lance like you. Now he has a shop and a real house, two fields and a vegetable patch," Jack let go of the boy's shoulders and took a step back. "C'mon. You have to make up your mind. I'm counting on you because you're the best man I can think off to take over from me."

"I broke everything," Mikele murmured. "How can you still want me to..."

"You didn't break everything," Jack said. "You'll come back down with me and start making new stuff. We were going to work on the wheel some more today anyway."

"Jorge's going to kill me."

"Yeah, well, he's a little..." Jack winced, "pissed, you could say. Both of you need to work on your temper and find a way to get along."

"He's a mule's ass. You said that," Mikele grumbled, but relaxed visibly.

"I know. But he's not such a bad guy all things considered. And he cleaned up your mess." Jack put a hand on his neck and gently but firmly pulled him away from the canopy. "Let's go. You've got work to do."

Mikele stopped after a couple of steps and, staring at his dirty feet, mumbled. "I thought you hate me now."

"Well, I expect you to make up for what you did. I wasn't happy when I saw the mess you made, but I'd never hate you, kid. And I'd be very glad if you didn't hate me for leaving."

Danny squeezed himself between them and took Mikele's hand. "Come on! Let's not be sad and angry. It's ballgame day and if we work real hard on new pottery, we can still go!"

Mikele glanced at Jack. "You coming too? To the game?"

To get more accusing glares and questions about why he was leaving town? Hell... "Yeah, sure."

Danny's other hand slipped into Jack's and in silence they started down the tiers. By the time they reached the arena the older boy had calmed down and even offered to catch the mule. He went to put the ball away and get the bridle.

"How do you do that?" Jack asked Danny as they waited.

"Do what?" Danny asked quietly.

"How do you..." He searched for the right words and finally came up with, "You touch people and they just... feel better? And that memory thing you did with me, like you're a satellite sending images?"

Danny, who was sitting on the ground playing with his shoelaces, looked up and frowned. "I dunno. Sometimes I feel like Daniel in my head." He tapped the top of his own head with one hand. "When I want to tell people something but don't know how, I touch them and they understand. And sometimes when someone is sad I want them to be better. But I didn't do anything like that to Mikele."

"You didn't?"

"Nope. He needed you to talk to him and you did." Danny went back to pulling and twisting his laces. "I know how to tie them," he mumbled. "I almost know how to do that."

Mikele returned with Thor in tow and handed the reins to Jack, but he shook his head. "He's partly yours now. You take him."

"You are really just giving him to us?" Mikele brushed a hand over the shaggy gray neck. "Why don't you take him with you?"

"We're going by train," Jack said. He had made up his mind about that pretty early in the planning stage of their journey.

"Oh!" Mikele's eyes grew big. "Really? I never took the train anywhere."

Jack bent down and tied Danny's laces. "It's the fastest way to get us where we need to be. We just need to sneak onto it without getting caught."

"Lots of tourists are leaving these days. You should get onto it okay," Mikele said thoughtfully.

"I hope they won't double security if it's really crowded," Jack muttered.

"Why do you have to leave?" Mikele asked, reluctant curiosity in his voice.

"I need to help a couple of friends. One of them is in trouble and he can't get out of it alone." That was it in a nutshell.

"Are they very good friends?"

Jack stood and felt Danny hugging his leg. Placing a hand on the blond head he said, "Yeah."

"They're family," Danny piped up.

Mikele nodded. Then he turned and eyed Thor. "Can I ride him? Will he let me? I know how to do it. I worked for a guy with horses two summers ago. He rented them out to tourists."

"Sure. You treat him well, he'll treat you well."

The boy nodded and mounted with the ease and grace of the young. "I'm always going to treat you well, Thor," he said, rubbing his fingers through the shaggy gray mane.

Jack put Danny in front of Mikele and a moment later they were on their way back to town.


	3. Chapter 3

**III**

The theater that had been deserted this afternoon was brimming with life and laughter as the sun slowly retreated behind the horizon and dusk settled over the ruins.

The loud and enthusiastic cheers when Mikele and Paolo scored the final points as their team won the game 5:3 against Jorge's, could be heard far and wide.

Jorge's merry band of players looked grim, but Jorge and Mikele shook hands in the middle of the arena and that was that. Almost all the kids who hadn't played, boys and girls alike, ran down to congratulate the winning team.

"So this is what they are up to instead of doing chores or being useful and earning some money." A shadow fell over Jack and when he tore his eyes away from the arena, he was surprised to see Mikele's mother standing next to him.

He shrugged. "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. That's what they say... where I come from."

Mania, who hadn't gone down with the other kids, snuggled into his left side. "You'the no a dull boy, Jack. You'th a lot of fun."

"You are, not you is." He sighed at the blank look she gave him, and smiled. "Thank you, Princess Mania."

The girl's mother sat down next to him. "Mikele said I could find you here tonight. I know we talked about the apprenticeship and everything you did for us..."

"And you thanked me and I said it's no big deal," he replied gruffly. He wasn't doing anything profound here. He didn't want his stuff go to waste. Sure, he could have sold everything to Hadis, but Hadis was building himself a career on his own just fine.

"Well, you know I can't pay you anything for the mule or all the clay and the barn space..."

"As long as they help out wherever Hadis needs them, the barn space is theirs until they can pay the rent on their own."

She nodded and looked down at her lap. Jack noticed only now that she had brought a bundle with her. Something thick and furry. Now she handed it to him. "One of my... costumers gave this to me once."

He unfolded what turned out to be a warm blanket of soft black and brown rabbit skin. "I can't take this," he said, shaking his head. "You and the kids are going to need it in the winter."

She looked at him, her face pinched with stubborn determination. "Don't be stupid, Jack O'Neill. Not even the last month of the year will be cold enough to need a blanket like this. It's pure luxury when you have a house and a warm oven. But when you told us you're leaving, you said you'll go inland. The further north you go, the colder it will get at night in a couple of weeks time. If you won't take it, I will throw it away. You better not insult me by refusing."

"Ow me," Mania said, shaking her wild red mane. "You haveta do what the pwintheth and the queen tellth you to. You haveta take ouw gift with gwapitube."

"Gratitude," Mania's mom and Jack said as one.

"Yeth, gwapitube!"

"I feel very grateful, your majesty," Jack said sincerely, dropping a kiss to the mass of locks.

He took the blanket with a nod of thanks. He could roll it up and tie it together to carry it and even use it as a pouch for their spare clothes and other stuff. It would keep them both warm, that was for sure.

Down in the arena a new game had started with everyone just trying to get hold of the ball and kicking it around.

Mania's mother watched for a while and shook her head. But she smiled. "I hope they won't stop playing when you're gone. Mikele keeps talking about these games all week." As she stood and looked down at him Jack wondered, not for the first time, how old she might be. Had she even reached her thirties yet? It was hard to tell. Even though she was still attractive, life had already drawn too many lines into her face.

"I need to go back to work." She told Mania to bring Ranja home with her later, then she left quickly.

"I with you didn' haveta go," Mania whispered and sniffled. "Who'th gonna buy me lollipopth an pwintheth cawdth. And whoth gonna be my thquiwe. An' you takin' my pwinthe Danny away fwom me."

Jack swallowed down the sudden lump clogging his throat. He had thought dealing with Mikele's anger earlier today was hard. He'd been glad to find out the twins didn't seem to be angry with him for leaving when he'd come to watch the game earlier. Now he wished he'd stayed away. But Danny had insisted they go. And of course Jack had complied. It was the last kickball game he got to watch.

He looked for Danny and his magic hands, but his kid was down with the others. Jack could see him and Ranja jumping up and down and clapping their hands. The perfect little cheerleader.

He was on his own here.

He hugged the small girl to his side. "Soon Mikele can buy you lollipops and cards. And he's going to let you ride Thor. And maybe you can go to school when you're a bit older. How's that?"

She shrugged and sniffled some more. At least she wasn't crying in full flow. Yet.

"I'll come visit." The words were out before he could hold them back and he wanted to kick himself for making promises he most likely couldn't keep.

She sat up straight and beamed at him. "For realth?!"

"It might take a while because there's something Danny and I need to do and we have to travel a while to get there."

"But you'll come vithit thome day, yeth?"

Jack tried to remember if taking leave included off world visits. If he had saved the world as often as he seemed to recall, they owed him, right? "Yes. Some day."

"An' you'll bwing pwinthe Danny!"

"Danny would chew me out pretty bad if I didn't bring him. Until then you and Ranja have to help Mikele with all the pottery stuff and give Thor lots of pats and cuddles, okay?"

She nodded eagerly, scrambled to her feet and, with puckered lips, planted a quick kiss to his cheek. "You are fwee to twavel now, squiwe Jack."

She danced away, her red curls wafting around her like a cloud of flames, and Jack looked on with a sad smile, hoping that she would always stay a princess in her heart and that she'd find a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow some day.

By the time he collected his star child to return to Ba'th, the twins and Mikele were already gone. Jack rolled up the new blanket and wedged it under one arm.

Danny was sitting on the lowest tier, watching Jorge and some of his friends playing a game of dice. He looked so vulnerable among those bulky youngsters, but if Jack could be certain of one thing it was that those guys were putty in the child's hands.

Everyone was.

"He's a smart little shrimp," Jorge greeted Jack. "He already knows how to play Liar's Dice."

"Yeah. Thanks for teaching him such fun games," Jack said. His sarcasm went right over Jorge's head.

"We never play for money, just for tobacco. But he could probably make you rich if you let him play in a gambling house. He knows all the rules after just one round of watching," Jorge said and his friends confirmed that.

"Jorge won a whole bag of tobacco 'cuz I helped him," Danny informed Jack with pride. "What's a gambling house, Jack?"

The young men laughed and Jack scooped up his kid, struggling not to lose the blanket in the process. Once Danny and blanket were settled he said, "A gambling house is a place where you lose all your money playing dice and cards or roulette. No one as smart as you wants to go there." He gave Jorge a prompting look and, when he was sure the teen would follow, walked away from the group.

"Hey, I told ya I'm not gambling for money. Relax," Jorge growled when Jack turned to face him once they were out of earshot.

"Easy, big guy. That's not what I wanted to talk to you about. I have a small space over there." He pointed in the general direction of his abode. "Mikele can show you where exactly. There's some stuff. Spare saddlebags for the mule, some dishes, candles. Just stuff I won't take with me. Bring the saddlebags down to the barn and sell the rest or keep it."

He had given some of his possessions he kept at Viktor's booth to Mikele. He figured Jorge could use the shelter up here to sleep. He didn't even know if the guy had a home down on the Lance.

Jorge pulled a clump of tobacco from his pants and a small bag with rolling paper. He started preparing his cigaret with nimble fingers even though it was almost completely dark now. "What turned you into a do-gooder all of a sudden, eh? Where are you going anyway?"

Jack wished people would stop asking him that.

"We're on a mission," Danny piped up.

Jorge snorted as he lit his cigaret. "A mission?"

"A very im-por-tant mission," Danny said.

"Let's just say I have things to do, places to go," Jack put an end to this. "Right now I need to get some sleep and it's a long way down to the beach."

Jorge held up his hand and Danny high-fived him. "I'm going to miss you, little shrimp. Keep your new dada on his toes." He gave Jack a sloppy salute and trotted off to rejoin his friends and their dice.

Jack managed to swing Danny up to sit on his shoulders without dropping his new blanket. "Ready to take this old mule home?"

Danny giggled and patted Jack's head. "Giddy up, giddy up!"

It was late and he wasn't really in the mood for horseplay, but he did a couple of leapfrogs just to humor the kid and was rewarded with peals of laughter and more gentle head-patting.

When he hiked down the main road – they had left Thor in town before they'd come up here for the ball game – the moon had come out. There were no clouds and the sky presented itself in all its starry glory. Jack spared a thought for Mohawk, wondering where his almost lover had gone and if he knew whoever had brainwashed him and his team.

SG-1. His team. Even though he remembered them by now, he kind of wished he didn't. His priorities were clear. He had to do whatever possible to find them and bring them home. But it was an obligation, nothing more.

Danny had told Mikele SG-1 was family and Jack knew it used to be that way, but he didn't _feel_ that kind of connection with them. He wondered if that was because of the memory stamp still trying to suppress his former life?

All he knew for sure was that Daniel – the fully grown up version - was gone. What else was there to go back to?

"Jack, are you?"

He must have missed something the kid said. "Huh?"

"Jorge said you're my new dada. Are you?"

Speaking of taking on more commitment than he'd been asking for. At least he didn't have to leave this little guy behind and break his heart. _And you better keep it that way_, Jack thought, _You've done enough of that to big-him. _

"Jack?"

"Danny?"

A pat on his head. "Are you? For as long as I'm here?"

Jack felt his guts tightening. _For as long as I'm here?_ "What? You going somewhere?"

"I dunno. Maybe I can stay like this. If you want me to."

Jack realized he didn't know what he wanted. Was there a choice in here somewhere? Or was this a lose-lose situation from the get go – would Danny serve his purpose of bringing SG-1 back together and then go back to where he'd come from, no matter what they both wanted?

"For now, let's just stick together and figure out how to get to Teal'c," Jack finally said. "Then, when this is all over, we'll... talk."

"That's what you said to Reetou Charlie. And then you sent him away," Danny pointed out.

"Reetou Charlie was very sick. He had to go to the Tok'ra to be fixed."

"But..."

Jack stopped walking. They had reached the first houses of town and the flickering light of oil lamps and candles brightened several windows. He lifted Danny off his shoulders and settled him on his hip so that they could look at each other. Some conversations needed to be face to face, from man to man.

"I'm not going to send you to the Tok'ra. Or anywhere. I'm not going to leave you on this planet either. Where I go, you go. If that's what you want." If that was part of the deal. Whatever the deal was, Daniel had made with Oma to be sent down here.

"Is that what you want, too?" Danny asked.

"Yeah. I need you to stick around and keep me company."

Danny tugged at his shirt. "Let me ride again, please!"

ooo

By the time they arrived at the beach Jack was convinced Danny must weigh a ton, especially once he'd fallen asleep, and their new blanket added to the dead weight.

He was tired, too, and glad he had already had his farewell drinks with Hadis last night. Their goodbye had been the least complicated or emotional, something Jack was grateful for. His friend hadn't asked too many questions either. He had wished him luck and complained about the fact that Jack had managed to talk him into taking two Lance kids under his wing. But a moment later he had already elaborated in detail on how Mikele and Jorge would be useful and increase his own profit.

So when Jack spread the new rabbit-skin blanket out on the sand and put Danny down on it after he'd pulled off the new boots, his mind was set on sleep and that they had to be up at sunrise in order to catch the early train out of Ba'th.

In Colorado, Jack would have set his alarm. Out here he only had the kid to rely on, but that was okay. Danny was an early riser – as opposed to his adult counterpart. Daniel hadn't been approachable until his second cup of coffee on a good day. Danny was up and running with the first light because every new day was full of wonders and things to explore.

Danny curled up, his thumb finding his mouth on auto pilot, and slept on. Jack considered just lying down next to him, but decided they'd be more comfortable with another blanket to cover them. He pulled the booth key from his pants as he headed for the small hut.

He sensed the movement before he saw the tall figure stepping out of the shadows and into the moonlight. Jack's hand clamped around the handle of a gun that wasn't there. Interesting new development on the memory lane. He forced himself to relax.

"What do you want?" he asked, keeping his voice low.

"Rumor has it you're leaving Ba'th," Mohawk said.

"And? So? Therefore?"

"Where are you going?"

"Oh, here and there, following the yellow brick road."

There was that confused pause in conversation Jack remembered getting from countless non-earthlings whenever he pulled one of his famous Oz or Simpson references.

Mohawk recovered rather quickly, apparently not interested in what the yellow brick road might be. "I like you, Jack. So I'm doing you a favor by telling you to be careful."

"Ye-ah, thanks, I guess. You don't happen to have some intel on what's going on here?"

"I can't."

"Can't or won't."

Mohawk came closer and Jack wondered what color his hair was today. He couldn't make it out in the moonlight, but It had to be something dark. "I have to report you to my authorities. They need to know you're leaving and where you're going."

The unspoken 'but I haven't, yet' was loud enough for Jack to hear. "What, I'm not allowed to leave and move someplace else? Who's going to stop me? You?"

"Tell me you're just going to settle down elsewhere with a new choice of..." Mohawk's mouth twitched into a smirk, "career? Can you do that? Because if that is the case, you have nothing to worry about even if I report your relocation. Tell me it has nothing to do with suddenly remembering an old lover from the past and your belief that there is life on other worlds or," Mohawk jerked his chin to the right where, somewhere in the dark, Danny was asleep, "him."

Jack resisted the need to run over and make sure the kid was okay. That no one else had snuck up on him and taken Danny. He was sure they were alone. Sometimes you just had to rely on your gut.

"Who are you?" he asked sharply, then decided to crawl out on a limb. Another gut feeling. Probably a bad decision. He had shared kisses with this guy, he was compromised. "I know about the memory stamp. Stop playing mind games with me. Either give me some answers or walk away. Right now. I can't keep you from reporting me if that's what you must do." Which wasn't exactly true. A cold and detached part in Jack knew several ways to kill quickly with his bare hands and how to dispose of the body. Mohawk lucked out because Jack chose not to be a cold-blooded killer. "But if you really came out here to warn me I'd rather you wait until I'm gone before you do your duty to whoever's paying you."

Mohawk's eyes closed for a moment and he shook his head as if in denial.

Jack pushed on relentlessly. "Why haven't you reported me yet?"

"All you need to know is that they sent me in to keep an eye on you and find out whether or not the memory stamp is firmly in place. Authorities were worried because of the 'fairy tales' you kept telling your customers. But your Shadow was sure it's only leftover traces from your subconscious. The authorities, however, had issues with Sam as well..."

"Carter? What about her? Where is she?" Jack snapped.

"She is fine. She is with her Mentor. At least that's what authorities believe. They think there's a general malfunction with the stamp in combination with your brains. It probably has to do with your species."

"Care to explain that Shadow/Mentor thing to me?"

"I shouldn't even be talking to you about any of this," Mohawk hissed.

"Why not? It's just you and me and," Jack looked around as if he expected an audience, "a deserted beach to walk on. Nice and quiet. No one's going to interrupt. We even have another starry night. I almost feel nostalgic, but it was probably just part of whatever scam you were playing."

"I wasn't coming on to you on purpose. Believe it or not, that wasn't part of the plan."

"What plan? And what exactly _was_ part of it?"

"Okay, fine, it WAS part of the plan. At first anyway. They told me to try and start something with you to gain your trust. But you happened to be... let's just say I didn't expect you to be so... hot." Mohawk shrugged.

"They?" Jack prompted.

"You're not missing a beat here, huh?" Jack's almost lover threw up his hands. "I probably can't give you the answers you want. Everything works on a need-to-know basis."

"Go on."

"The authorities reside in Madinah City, they are part of the government and head of the Armed Forces. They have control over the portal you call the stargate. Whenever travelers come through they are taken to the facilities to be scanned and stamped."

What followed was a lengthy explanation about Mohawk not knowing exactly how the stamping process worked or why it was done, followed by the reveal of the meaning of Shadow and Mentor, followed by...

"Hold it – rewind to the mentor part. You're my..." Jack blinked. "What?"

"I'm your Mentor. Your Shadow sent monthly reports about your progress and mentioned the weird tales you spin on your guide job and the authorities grew worried. They sent me to..."

"To make sure I'm not remembering stuff, I got that. Who's this Shadow fella? Who's been writing monthly reports about me? And while we're talking about me – what kind of productive purpose did they think I could have with what I've been doing around here?" Which was exactly nothing. Nothing that served society in any way. Unless you considered entertaining vacationers with stupid made-up stories something useful.

Mohawk rolled his shoulders and avoided Jack's eyes. "I don't know who your Shadow is. As for your purpose – you used to be a high ranking military leader and hard to place. After reviewing your memories, after knowing who you were, they tagged you as dangerous. They feared you'd grow too powerful if they stamped you to serve at the Armed Forces or put you in any position that enabled you to gain money and influence. So they gave you the lowest level and placed you in Ba'th."

"Ah. Where'd they put Carter?"

"At the academy in Madinah, to teach engineering. She was a soldier as well, but she's a woman. No one believes a female soldier can be of much harm. Actually, no one believes there should be female soldiers in the first place."

Jack snorted and Mohawk shrugged. "I wasn't given her detailed data, but I've seen some of your memories of her. I know she was in your unit and they underestimated her on all levels. They review the memories of everyone they stamp. I am not sure why they didn't see Sam's potential. Because she was a scientist, too, they tagged her as useful. But she's a woman so they only gave her limited possibilities."

Jack grimaced. "What is it with you people? Why are you stuck in the dark ages on so many levels?" Carter was a wealth of knowledge and a kick-ass soldier. If they couldn't see that, it's their loss.

"I know. You don't have to tell me. It is time for changes. In more than one way." Mohawk looked grim from what Jack could tell in the little light there was. "That's why I'm not going to report you even though it can, and most likely will, cost me my job and my life as I know it. Jadah and a couple of others, going well back through the line of our ancestors, have been looking for a way to break the authorities' power for generations."

"A resistance group?"

"Not that organized, really, but you could call it that, I suppose." Mohawk crossed his arms and took a couple of steps away. He turned to look out over the dunes and the ocean. "When you are chosen, by the authorities, to be a Shadow or a Mentor you are taken to the facilities and get a special stamp and an implant. The stamp gives us access to all the information about our subject when they are needed."

"What exactly does that mean? You got the O'Neill 101? A list of food I like, my favorite TV shows, what?"

"It's more complicated than that. What we get beforehand is a basic resume of who you were and what you are supposed to be here. Nothing more. To make contact easier we get to know some of your likings, yes. Our stamp connects with yours and is set to give us data when needed as we interact with our subjects.

"For example, I knew you had a background knowledge about the gods... Goa'uld or the Jaffa... but my stamp wouldn't provide me with any of that knowledge until you mentioned Ra and Bra'tac when I first met you. The time before I started needling you about your stories. When I thought of Bra'tac my shield provided me with some data and let me know who he was. It was very eye opening to know that our Sinner legend is based on the Jaffa. This has given me a piece of history I am very interested in. But only parts of it. I'd like to know more. Your real memories are pretty guarded. Only small bits and pieces slipped over to me when my stamp tried to access the information about Ra and Bra'tac your subconscious carried."

"Sounds complicated," Jack said.

"It is. And I knew you liked men, but had no idea about Daniel until you started talking. about him at..."

"Aht!" Jack raised a warning fingers. "None of your business!"

Mohawk nodded and continued, "Via the stamp the Shadow or the Mentor will notice if there might be a bleed in of unwanted memories."

"Who's the Shadow?" Mohawk had managed to lure Jack in, had almost gotten him laid. Almost. He had _liked_ this guy, for Pete's sake. If this Shadow was someone Jack had called a friend, too, he could only be glad that he hadn't shared his destination with anyone.

"I don't know who your Shadow is."

"You're a lying bastard."

The other man still didn't look at him. "Listen, because this is important. My implant makes it possible for authorities to track me. I'm supposed to stay close to you and make sure you live on happily without a clue. Or report to them should you start remembering. If you leave to find your comrades I will send in reports telling them nothing is wrong with your stamp and that you are living a happy life. That should hopefully close your case and give you the time you need."

Jack snorted. "What about the Shadow guy? He'll know I'm going to leave."

Mohawk's shoulders tensed. "He will keep quiet. He is one of us."

Which confirmed it. He was a lying bastard.

Jack filed away all this information and moved on to the next question on his list. "If you tried to undermine your authorities for years without succeeding, what makes you think you have a foot in the door now?"

"Because you and your people have defeated the Goa'uld and have knowledge of their technology and their ways. Jadah thinks Sam will find a way to free the Sinner of their snakes. She also believes Sam will be able to destroy the venus trap. And you both have a vast knowledge about the gods and their history. That has never happened before with travelers. Authorities are concerned about that as well. Apparently you have killed many of the gods from other worlds and the authorities believe you might deem them evil and try to overcome Ba'th's government."

"But there's no Goa'uld on Ba'th, right? Why do they fear us – aside from the fact that they kidnap people and scramble their brains and that Earth won't make nice with those folks," Jack said. He wished Daniel was here – the fully grown one – to deal with all these facts and details.

"There's no Goa'uld, but the authorities still use the evil god's technology. They probably thought you might frown upon that," Mohawk said.

"Right. Good point. What about you? You and this Yadda know about the Goa'uld now. Aren't they afraid you'd share with others?"

"We only know fragments, not all the details. And we have sworn an oath of secrecy. If we share secret knowledge with outsiders we will be hunted down and memory stamped ourselves. And they will extract from our minds exactly whom we told and then those people will be stamped as well."

"What about that venus trap?" Jack fired off the next question, trying to keep all his ducks in a row. He usually relied on his team to remember all the tricky details and provide him with them when he needed them.

"The portal keeps travelers in a force field and alerts authorities who then transport them directly to the facilities. The system was installed by the gods who ruled here, to bring new slaves to this world and make them compliant without having to torture or force them. It works automatically."

"Well, she's right about one thing. If anyone can de-trap your gate, it's Carter," Jack said. "About that snake business... how many Jaffa we talking about here? I know Teal'c is stuck at a monastery on some weird trip with this whole Sinner legend. Say we can get them all out of there and use them as backup...?"

Mohawk shook his head as he finally faced Jack again. "I don't know. There is a monk among the guards at the monastery who is supposed to work for us, but no one has heard from him in ages. The whole resistance idea is very old and so are most of the people involved. Before you got here no one had come through the portal in generations."

"Great," Jack huffed. "Thanks for the note of confidence."

"I am taking a great risk here. I know about the resistance group because my great-grandfather was part of it and my great-great-grandfather before him. They believed it was wrong to erase people's memories. Their knowledge was passed on to the oldest son or daughter – because they would most likely be recruited as well. My father clued me in about everything when I came of age. But only my great-grandfather could remember that his own father had actually worked as a Mentor. I was recruited when you came through the portal and while I agree that authorities are overstepping the line here, I wasn't willing to risk my career and my life for a resistance group that only existed in people's mind nowadays."

"Until my compelling hotness changed your mind," Jack said, oozing sarcasm.

Mohawk snorted. "It is one thing to theoretically know there are people whose memories are suppressed and replaced by new ones. You think about it and find it odd or even wrong. But you also think that if those people don't actually know what happened to them they are still happy enough, right? It's so abstract. And when you get clued in on the big secret you think; oh, it hasn't happened in ages. It probably won't ever happen again. And you go on with your life and do your thing. And then they suddenly recruit you and present you with the reality of it."

"Rude awakening, was it?"

"Not at first, no. I thought I'd come here with my buddies – who are really just tourists by the way - check you out, get a feeling for who you are. They gave me my stamp with all your data before I left home and I realized we have a mutual friend already, which was a bit of a shock because I had no idea Sam was stamped. We met at the academy and got along fairly well."

Jack felt his eyes narrow. "How well?"

"We were just friends. I don't swing both ways," Mohawk said with a little grin.

Jack's blood pressure went down a notch. But unlike what Mohawk probably thought, it wasn't jealousy that got to him. It was the thought that this guy, who had come on to Jack under false pretense, could have done the same to Carter and hurt her.

He might not feel the bonds that tied him to his people the way he used to, but they were still his team and he didn't like anyone messing with them.

Mohawk said, "But even when I realized Sam was stamped, I wasn't prepared to warn you or do anything about it. Letting her go will be a huge loss. She has great potential to make a difference around here and bring some fresh wind into the dusty, antiquated ways of our people. If she stood up for her beliefs and found a way to make herself heard she could do a lot for this world. She had a breakthrough in improving electricity that would maybe change Ba'th's economy..."

Jack made a whirling motion with his hand. "You can't keep her. Go on – what changed your mind?"

"I spent time with you. I can't explain it, but on the couple of times we met I could almost see the other you underneath. Or at least part of it. There was the way you tended to the local kids. Especially to the little one you took in. I knew you lost a son in your other life and I was wondering if you were still trying to find a way to heal. At first I thought that was good, that it meant you were happier here."

_I am,_ Jack thought with clarity. _I'm a lot happier here. And I'm about to throw it all away._

"On our date, when you remembered..."

"Daniel," Jack said flatly and instantly the weird images of blue paint and flowers were back, trying to force themselves into his mind. Squiggles and laughter. Kisses and hot skin on skin.

"Daniel," Mohawk agreed. "You remembered Daniel and my stamp provided me with a multitude of..."

Jack grabbed his upper arm, fingers digging into hard muscles. "What?! What did your stamp tell you about Daniel?"

"It didn't tell me anything about him," Mohawk said softly, "but everything about how you feel about him. And how you are castigating yourself because you think it's your fault he left."

Jack felt his jaw hardening. His whole body went rigid. He knew how he felt about Daniel. That someone had dug into his mind deeply enough to extract it from him was like rape. That Mohawk had dared to access it, that he had seen Jack's most private and intimate feelings... something no one had the right to know. No one except Daniel, maybe, and not even Daniel knew...

"You're dead." His voice was void of any emotion, but his insides were a turmoil of humiliation, rage and agony.

"I reminded you of him," Mohawk went on, not seeing – or no wanting to see – how his life was hanging by a single thread. "At first I was mad. I wanted you and I didn't want you to remember your old life because I really thought we had something going there. But the longer I thought about it the more I understood how this is haunting you, even unconsciously. I decided to leave you be and not dig into that wound any further. I hoped you'd really forget in time. But then people were talking about you leaving and..." He looked at his arm where Jack's fingers were leaving bruises.

Jack let go and Mohawk winced, before he asked, "Is there a chance you'll find him again if you go back to your old life? Is there a chance for you to put this right? Whatever you did – because it's not exactly clear what it was that made him leave or where he went. You probably suppressed it so deeply that I can't get access to it."

He shook his head. His voice was brittle, fading. "I don't know."

Mohawk gave him a fleeting smile. "Well, you better find out then. Here." He handed Jack a small round object.

It was a compass. Ancient compared to Earth technology standards, but in working order. "Go north. Are you going by foot?"

"Train."

"Good. The train will take you to Sa'iidi. Find the town's miller. Tell him Jadah sent you and he'll probably give you a ride to her house. Tell him you're taking your young son to Jadah so she can heal him. Make something up, just nothing contagious. Many people from all over the area go to Jadah; she's a well known herb woman. It won't raise any suspicion. You can rest at her house before taking the last part of your journey. Jadah will give you directions."

"You and this Yadda..."

"Jadah. It's pronounced Je-dah, actually."

"Whatever. How do you communicate? As far as I know there are no phones or radios around here. Yet, you seem to know where my people are right now?"

"Pigeons."

"Pigeons? As in putting tiny notes on a bird's leg and sending it off?"

"They are incredibly fast and need very little rest. Jadah is breeding them. Hers are white. The authorities use colored ones."

"Ah. You don't happen to have one in your pocket so that I can contact Carter?"

"No. And we have to be careful using them. Sometimes they get shot down and if messages fall in the wrong hands it could be fatal."

They fell silent and regarded each other warily. Jack weighed the compass in his hand, Mohawk tilted his head. A light breeze tousled the top of his hair.

"What color is it?" Jack asked.

"What?"

"Your hair. What's today's color?"

Mohawk raised a hand to his hair, then smiled. "Black. It was purple this morning, but I figured it'd be a good idea not to draw any attention to it tonight."

"Smart choice." Jack slid the compass into his pants. "Thanks. I guess."

"What about the boy? How does he play into all this? I know he's connected to Daniel somehow, but again – your mind's hard to crack."

"Need-to-know-basis," Jack said.

He received a nod. "Good luck. I will return home in a week from here to make my final reports. If you can really help your friend, come to Madinah City. Sam knows where to find me. Tell her same place, same time as usual. I will see what I can do to help you to go back through the portal." Mohawk abruptly turned and walked away as quietly as he'd come, swallowed by the night's shadows.

**ooo**

Jack checked his bundle one last time and made sure he had his stash of money safely in his pocket. Spare clothes, razor knife, soap and towel were wrapped neatly into the rabbit-skin which was tied together by leather strips and a rope. Danny was wearing his cap, his green pants and orange t-shirt. Until a couple of minutes ago he had watched Jack's progress on packing, but then he'd skipped out of the booth.

Jack slung the rope around his left shoulder and made sure his small pot and coffee mug were tied to it properly, along with the water pouch. There was only so much he could carry without the mule, but they'd be a lot faster taking the train.

The kids and Hadis were going to take good care of Thor, but damn, Jack would miss his cranky companion.

Shaking off pointless thoughts of regret, he stepped outside and called for the kid who was... Jack suppressed a groan... not where he was supposed to be. He was about to holler more loudly and search the beach when he heard squeals of laughter from the left. Sure enough he spotted a blond and a red headed tot jumping and rolling down the dunes.

Mania saw him, did a clumsy somersault and landed on her feet. Waving both arms she ran towards him, yelling at the top of her lungs, "I'th came to take you to the twain!"

She slammed into Jack, wrapping her arms around his leg, caking his pants with sand. "That's really... omph!" He stumbled backwards when Danny grabbed his other leg.

"Jack, Jack, Mania came to see us off!"

"Yes... I heard."

"You'th havta huwwy!" She let go and started running around him, flailing arms and all. "Huwwy, huwwy!"

Jack locked the booth and placed the key under a loose floor board of the door step. Viktor would know where to look for it next spring. He had left some of the yard sale stuff for his friend and a note inside, apologizing for not having painted the hut as he'd promised.

"You got your shoes on?" Jack checked to make sure Danny hadn't pulled them off again.

"Yep. And you got yours on." Danny grinned up at him.

"Told ya I would. All right, time to blow this joint. Take point, kids, but watch out for traffic!"

To reach the train station they had to take the boardwalk, away from town. The first morning light reflected in the hotels' windows, creating the illusion of red fire on the panorama of windowpanes.

There was a traffic jam at the Paradise Plaza, a huge white building with many large french doors and fancy baroque towers. Several delivery wagons waited in line for their turn to enter the driveway and move around the hotel to unload their goods.

After dutifully looking left and right, Mania grabbed Danny's hand and they crossed over to take a look at the wagons. The one closest to them carried milk bottles, one oranges and the third was loaded with tomatoes.

The drivers had gathered by a wagon further down the line. They smoked and chatted as they waited. No one paid attention to the by-passers and no one noticed the little girl climbing one of the wagons like a little monkey.

Jack reached them just in time to grab the bottle of milk Mania thrust at him. Then she was down and up the next one in a flash, snatching two oranges. She stuffed them in the large front pockets of her baggy dress and slid down.

Danny's eyes grew big as saucers. "Jack! She..."

Jack reached down and put a finger to his lips, whispering. "Shhh. I'll pay for it."

Danny nodded empathically and Jack pulled a taler from his pants. He placed it in the empty space where the bottle had been.

He tugged at Danny's hand to keep him moving. "All done. C'mon, let's go."

At the frown that met him he refrained from rolling his eyes and left another taler on the coachman seat of the fruit wagon. A fortune for Mania's meager breakfast choice, but he didn't have any small change with him, only taler and some folding money in case he had to buy another mule or horse later on.

However, the last thing he needed was a bunch of angry merchants on their heels. They had to catch that damn train and boarding it was going to be a challenge even without a mob trying to lynch them because of a bottle of milk and two oranges.

"Do you want tomatoes?" Mania asked in a hushed voice.

Jack snatched her by the back of her dress before she could mount the next wagon, and gave her a gentle push. "Not today, we're in a hurry, remember?"

"Ohhh, yettthhh!" She skipped ahead and Danny followed suit.

For a second Jack considered putting the milk back and grabbing his taler, but before he could make up his mind they had passed the last wagon and were on their way.

It was too early for beach goers, but they saw groups of tourists boarding coaches that would take them to the station. That was good. If the platform was busy enough, maybe they could make a smooth get away. Jack had explained the necessity of being quick and keeping a low profile to Danny yesterday.

"Why can't you just buy a ticket?" the bug had asked.

"The train's for rich people only. They won't even let us buy a ticket," Jack had said.

"But that's not fair."

"Nope, but it's the way it is. Only wealthy people get to ride the train. It's very expensive and pure luxury."

Danny had shrugged. "Then we have to make it a Special Ops."

They had discussed the Special Ops plan which was mostly based on them waiting for the right moment and Jack being the one to say when and Danny being the one to climb up to the roof only when Jack said so. Danny had said he could climb up to the roof real fast and make himself as small as an ant so that no one could see him. They would climb on the last wagon just before the train took off so that the chances of being spotted were as minimal as possible.

So much for theory.

The boardwalk took a sharp left turn away from the beach and they spotted the first sign that read: Ba'th Town Train Station. And a smaller sign underneath: No begging, no trespassing.

A moment later they crossed the wide sandy square that served as the parking space for horse carriages, buggies and the large merchant wagons. Danny's head started doing the swiveling motion again and Jack quickly took his hand to keep him close and to make sure he didn't end up underneath a carriage.

Mania tugged at his arm. "Gimme my bottle, pleeth."

He handed it down to her, a "Careful, don't drop it," on his lips, but never got around to saying it. She grabbed it, then planted a big soggy smacker on Danny's lips and was gone.

The star child raised a hand to his mouth, letting out a soft, "Ohhh."

"That sealed it, you gotta marry her now," Jack smirked as he swung Danny up. "Okay, let's do this. You ready?"

At Danny's nod Jack turned right and rounded the small white washed railway building. Peering around the corner he had a good view of the platform and was pleased to see it was pretty crowded with departing tourists and luggage. The train was already there, its massive black steam engine puffing out small clouds of white smoke.

Jack counted four red-painted carriages coupled together. Each one had a ladder at its back, leading to the top. Suitcases and crates were tied to the roofs of the first three cars and more luggage was being added by two railway workers. The last wagon was reserved for merchant goods from the cities and other freight. Going by the closed doors and the wooden boxes stacked at the far end of the platform it had already been unloaded. Good. No one would pay attention to an empty freight wagon.

Jack put Danny down, took his hand and hurried them over to hide behind those boxes. He suppressed a curse when he saw two railway attendants in their blue uniforms and golden insignia patrolling the platform to make sure no one snuck on. They came from opposite directions so there was little chance they'd both turn their back on Jack's position anytime soon.

He considered converting to Plan B and taking the night train. But the night train only went during the high main season when day trippers came to enjoy the ocean and leave at night. Vacationers traveled home by day, not by night.

"Jack, look," Danny called out. "There's Mania. And Mikele. And Ranja. And..."

"Shhh, We need to be quiet, remember?"

"...and Masala and Paolo," Danny whispered.

He was right. Jack craned his neck to get a better view of the group of people forging onto the platform. The attendants immediately stopped patrolling and went to shoo them away, but Masala started talking to them, gesturing wildly.

What the hell...?

Then Mania slipped away from the group and ran down the platform, laughing and waving her bottle of milk.

"She stole it from me," Masala yelled after her. "Little useless thief! Get a hold on her!"

Ranja ran after his sister, followed by Mikele and Paolo. They were all yelling and drawing the attention of every single person, workers and passengers alike, to them. One of the railway guys started chasing them, the other barked at Masala to get off the platform. Masala threw up her arms, lamenting loudly about the milk being needed to feed her baby. She put on quite a show, even slapping the guy on the arm and screaming for Law Enforcement.

"Get her, get her, or let me get her! I need the milk! I cannot go home without it! What will my husband think! What will he do! The baby needs the milk! Get her, get her!" She grabbed the attendant's hands and shook them, "Please, oh, please, my milk, my baby, oh please!"

"Get off, woman! It is not my concern that you lowly folks breed like rabbits!" the attendant barked.

At the far end of the platform Mania dropped the bottle in full run. It hit the pavement, crashed and broke into a hundred little pieces, freeing rivers of milk.

The flustered attendant managed to get out of Masala's clutches and joined his colleague. They were standing there, cursing and raving about the mess. Finally one of them went after the kids who were long gone. The other one yelled for someone to clean up the mess.

Jack had started moving when Mania dropped the bottle. He gave Danny a boost up the ladder of the freight wagon and was about to follow the kid when a light tap on the shoulder had him spin around and almost strike at whoever was trying to stop him.

"It's me!" Hadis hissed and, instead of being handcuffed and arrested, Jack had a rucksack shoved into his chest. He grabbed it and raised a questioning eyebrow. Hadis smirked, his beard twitching. "Masala fears you or the boy might starve. She said to wish you well."

"Tell her thanks," Jack said, meaning it. He hadn't been able to take more than a loaf of bread and summer sausage with them. Whatever was in the pack would enhance their meals tenfold.

"There's something else in the pack. You should open it soon, but not until Ba'th is out of sight and you are in the open range. Good luck." With that Hadis ducked out of sight and Jack climbed up the ladder.

By the time the ruckus over the spilled milk was over, he and Danny were flat on their bellies, the warm wooden planks of the roof underneath them.

Someone was cleaning up the broken bottle, Masala had left the stage and there was no sight of the kids. People went back to tending to their own business and boarding the train.

"Good. They got away," Jack muttered, grateful for the diversion they'd created. "Reckless little buggers." But he knew he didn't need to worry; they were way too smart to get caught.

Iron guardrails, supposed to keep luggage from tumbling down even if the ropes loosened, hid them from prying eyes as long as they kept their heads down. Danny started squirming next to him and Jack put a hand on his back. "You all right, buddy?"

"Ah-huh, I'm just so ex-cit-ed! When does it start, Jack? Will the locomotion whistle when it takes off? Will it go fast or slow?" Danny pressed his hands to his mouth, stage-whispering. "Am I making too much noise? I can't remember being on top of a train ev-er. I don't even know when was the last time I took a train at all. People in China and India ride on top of their trains 'cause there're too many people and the train's too small."

Jack rubbed his hand up and down Danny's back to calm him a little, but he had to smile. "I don't think they can hear you down there. Just stay right here next to me so they can't see you. And cover your ears – that whistle is going to blow them off."

Danny threw his arms over his head, pressing his nose to the roof, and giggled. "I need my ears!"

"Yep. Hold on to them."

They heard doors being slammed and someone announcing the departure of the train, then there was a shrill whistle from the railway attendant. The train lurched, the engines hissed and spat out more smoke.

"Now," Danny squealed.

The train started rumbling and the engine trumpeted long and earsplittingly loud. As they picked up speed, the head wind carried smoke over to them and Jack yelled at Danny to keep his head down. They still ended up coughing until the smoke drifted off a moment later.

Jack raised his head in time to see Ba'th Town Station one last time, with the hotels and the ocean in the background. The platform and its buildings became smaller and they passed foothills of the town, the orchards and pastures, the hill with the ruins on top, towering over all of it like an ancient giant.

He sat up, pulling Danny with him to sit between his outstretched legs. Together they watched the landscape slide by. The boy raised a hand and waved an enthusiastic goodbye and Jack wondered if Danny realized that he might never see his friends again. Which led to the question what was going to happen to the star child once they were ready to go home.

_Bridges to cross later_, Jack thought.

"Jack, what's in the pack?"

Danny surged forward to scramble to his feet, but Jack had a dead hold on him. "Aht! What's the first rule about riding train tops?"

"Oh! No sudden moves and no wandering around." A frown followed that statement. "Do I have to sit here for hours and hours?"

Jack bent forward and reached past Danny to grab the pack by one of its straps. "I'm afraid we both do, kiddo. Let's make the best of it and take a look at what's in here." He placed the pack before them and opened it, then quickly closed it again when a white head pushed out and a sharp beak tried to pick at his hand.

"Jack! There's a birdie in it. Can we let it out?"

Instantly remembering Mohawk's warning about how pigeons sometimes got shot down he shook his head. "Not yet. We have to wait until we're far enough from the town."

"Why's there a birdie in our pack?" Danny tugged at the leather flap and Jack pulled his hands away.

"It's a messenger. You know, with a ring on its leg where you can put a small letter?"

"A homing pigeon. They were used in ancient Greece to announce the winner of the Olympics and they were used in wars to carry messages through enemy lines," Danny said thoughtfully, drawing information from his big self somehow.

Jack had noticed him doing that before, but he had no idea if Danny was using Daniel's memories or knowledge consciously or if it just surfaced randomly.

"That's right. Hadis gave it to me." Which answered the question of Jack's Shadow. At least it narrowed it down to Hadis or Masala. Somehow he was less shocked or surprised than he'd thought he would be. He wasn't sure how he felt about it, but it was a moot point to dwell. In the long run the only thing that mattered was that they were on the right side.

"Will it be okay in there? When can we let it go and what message is it going to take to whom?"

"I think it'll be okay in there for a little while longer. The message is probably to let someone know we're coming."

"Sam?"

"A friend of hers. Someone who knows where she is and can help us to find her."

"You have to check it first to make sure it's not a trap," Danny advised him sternly.

"Yes, sir." Jack saluted and for some reason the kid thought it was hilarious.

They sat and watched corn and pumpkin patches. They saw farm houses and large barns. On some fields the rye or corn stood still high, others had already been cropped. Flat farmland. The only change in scenery were grazing cows or horses on green pastures.

"Just like Kansas," Jack mused.

"Don't you wish we could click our heels threes time to go home and all be together again?" Danny asked. "You and me and Sam and Teal'c and Daniel."

"You think that's possible?" Jack resisted the need to look back and check if he could still see his ruins in the distance. "You think Daniel could come back?"

"Sure, if he wanted to. I wanted to come back to you and I could. He just has to ask Oma," Danny said, all confidence.

"How come he couldn't come all the way back?"

Maybe the real question here was; did Daniel even want to return from glowy land? And if he did, what exactly did that mean? Was it up to Jack where to take it from there?

Or had that particular ship sailed a long time ago?

As if he had read Jack's mind, the boy said, "Daniel doesn't know if he wants to come back all the way. He likes being in the stars. Kinda." After a moment of thought, he added. "But he wanted to help you guys and The Others wouldn't allow him to interfere."

"Ah."

"I'm very small so I could slip under their radar. That's why Oma split us."

And if the rest of Daniel came back, wouldn't he need that small part added to him again? Jack's brain hurt from even trying to imagine how this was all possible. But if the munchkin thought he and Daniel could co-exist, then maybe... who knew?

"Danny?"

Danny was playing with his laces again, pulling them open and trying to tie them. "Jack?"

"Can you..." Jack wasn't sure how to ask without making it sound weird. He decided there was just no way to not make it sound weird. "Can you call Daniel? Can you actually... talk to him?"

"He's with Sam now. I think he didn't like you trying to make babies with funny-hair-guy." Suddenly Danny let go of his laces and stared at Jack open mouthed.

Jack stared back at him, probably the same dumb expression on his face. "Babies? What?"

"Jack! Mania kissed me on my lips! Do you think I could have a baby now?!"

_Oy. Houston... we have a problem._ Jack closed his mouth and cleared his throat. He desperately tried not to laugh. "Danny, you don't make babies like that. Not when you kiss."

Danny frowned. "Daniel said that, too. And he said to ask you about it."

"Oh, he did, did he?" _Son of a..._ "Well, kissing doesn't lead to babies. No worries."

"Oh. Okay." Much to Jack's relief he went back to playing with his laces.

For about a minute.

"Jack?"

_Uh-oh_. "Mmmh?"

"Is it true that boys can't make babies at all?"

"Well, two boys can't. You need a woman to make babies. And you both have to be adults to make it work." He desperately hoped that solved the issue for the little guy because he wasn't prepared to explain what went where and how – in kiddie-terms.

"Sha're and Daniel could've had a baby then but not you and Daniel or you and funny-hair-guy," Danny processed thoughtfully.

"Right."

"Is that 'cuz two guys can't love each other?" Danny had stopped fiddling with his laces and looked up at Jack with open curiosity. "That's why you wouldn't wanna marry funny-hair! Oh! I remember it just now... You said guys don't love guys. They just..."

He knew the next word that would come out of the boy's mouth and he just couldn't let him say it. It was wrong on too many levels to have a four year old say 'fuck'. He put a finger on Danny's lips to shush him and hurried to deliver an explanation.

"No! It's got nothing to do with that. See, guys just don't have the physical, uh, capability to make it work. It needs a woman to carry the baby in her belly and to, um, give birth to it. And no, before you ask, a Jaffa man can't have babies either. The pouch isn't like a womb, it's different."

Danny chewed on his bottom lip as he sorted it out in his mind. Finally he said, "I used to know about this stuff, right? About the babies and the sex? Well, Daniel does, anyway."

"Maybe you really don't need to know as long as you're," Jack shrugged, "little?"

"Oh, maybe you're right." The frown evened out and Danny smiled.

Jack tied the kid's laces and said, "Why don't we take care of our pigeon now?"

"YES! It must be scared all alone in the pack!"

They were still surrounded by corn and rye, but less and less farms. In the distance Jack could make out trees and rolling hills. He hoped it was safe enough to release the messenger now. Carefully, he opened the bag and closed his hand around the bird. He felt the fast fluttering heartbeat and the rustling of feathers between his fingers. But the pigeon didn't try to escape or fight when he pulled it out of the pack and showed it to Danny. He cupped both hands around it and it held perfectly still.

"There is a thing on its leg," Danny observed.

"That's where the message is in."

"Can I, please?" Short fingers, itching to open the tube, reached for the bird's leg.

Jack was about to say no, but changed his mind as he realized that Danny had an advantage because of his small hands. It would be easier for him to open the tube and get the message out than for Jack. "You have to be very careful and not let go of the paper. If we lose it, we can't get it back," he warned.

"I know."

Crooning to the pigeon, Danny gently took its leg and opened the tube. With nimble fingertips he removed a rolled scroll and closed his fist around it. "Got it."

"Good work. Can you read it?"

He nodded and, as carefully as if he was handling a raw egg, he unrolled the paper. "It has today's date on it and it says; arriving 4 dinner 2day. That's all."

"Plain and simple. Nice."

"You don't think it's a trap then, right?" Danny asked.

Jack didn't think so, but of course he couldn't be 100 % positive. He believed Hadis was on his side and that the bird was to let Jadah know they were on their way. But it could as well be a message for someone else, like the authorities, to let them know when they'd arrive in Sa'iidi. But Mohawk had said the pigeons of Sam's Mentor were white.

This was definitely a white pigeon.

"It's not a trap. Put it back in."

Danny complied and double checked that the tube was closed before he let go of the bird's leg. Then he brushed a tender finger over the pigeon's white head. "Look how pretty she is," he whispered. "D'you think she has a name, Jack?"

"No idea. But you could ask its owner when we get there."

As if the pigeon knew her time for take off had come it started to squirm in Jack's hands and, with a little upward push, he let it go. It flattered in front of them for a moment, then found its balance and soared away with the wind.

Danny waved and called after it to be careful and, "God speed!"


End file.
